


Things Have Changed Since You Left the Building

by squeequeg



Category: Half-Life, Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-02
Updated: 2010-04-02
Packaged: 2017-10-08 15:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squeequeg/pseuds/squeequeg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following her escape from the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, Chell enters a world ruled by the Combine, meets new allies and enemies, and learns that sometimes it's not enough just to escape. (AU in that it ignores the new patch, the new ending, and any word of Portal 2.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Maybe Black Mesa

It wasn't the Relaxation Vault.  Chell could tell that much even with her eyes closed; the smell of old antiseptic had been replaced by a singed, musty scent, and instead of the hum of equipment, an intermittent sound of sparks fizzed not far off.  She savored that knowledge for a moment longer, admitting for the first time her fear that after all that, after test chamber and incinerator and GLaDOS taunting her from every loudspeaker, she'd  just wake up in the same place again.

But wherever this place was, it sure as hell wasn't the tarmac she'd landed on after destroying GLaDOS.  Not unless her sense of touch was so far gone that she was reading blacktop as squishy.  That was the last thing she remembered: the grit under her cheek, the sun warm on the other side of her face, and the crunch as the CPU hit the ground next to her.  There had been more, though, hadn't there?  The sound of . . . tires, or an engine, and a voice . . . She tried to shake her head, winced, and opened her eyes.

The room looked like it had once been an office, the kind of cushy corner spot middle management fought each other to get.  Now the blinds were drawn, a spare table had been propped up against one of the windows, and where some overpaid executive's desk should have been stood a cluster of equipment and the cot on which Chell lay.  A series of IVs and wires ran from her arm to the machines and monitors, none of which she recognized. 

_Why would I recognize them?_ she thought a second later.  _Was I a doctor of some kind?_  She'd hoped that once outside the Aperture Science facility, something would be more familiar or might jog her memory.  Anything to shed some light on the blank that was all she had before the Relaxation Vault.  But this . . . she could recognize that it was an office, knew the words for what ought to be here, but why it was in this state was beyond her.

She looked down at herself, the orange jumpsuit much the worse for wear, the heel springs distorting the shapes of her legs under the covers.  Was any of this even _supposed_ to feel familiar? 

But there were no cameras.  At least there was that.

A woman's voice spoke, and all of Chell's certainty shuddered away.  "Good, you're awake.  I was wondering --"

She rolled off the cot, clawing at the IVs in her arm, then stopped, panting.  A gray-haired woman paused in the doorway, leaning heavily on a thick cane.  "It's okay," she said -- the other real person said!  "I'm not going to hurt you."

Chell stared at her, the panic slowly ebbing.  _Hurt me?  No, that doesn't matter, hurt me if you like but my God you're real_.  She tried to speak, but nothing came out, and got to her feet instead, holding out her unencumbered hand.

The room dipped and lurched around her, and the older woman just barely caught her by the hand.  "Take it easy," she said, helping Chell back to the cot.  "You shouldn't be out of bed just yet."

Her hand was scarred in places and callused and thin as bird bones, but it was warm and real and human.  Chell let out her breath in something close to a sob and sat back on the cot, still holding on.  _Real.  I'm not the only person in the world._

_Maybe I really _did_ escape._

The older woman smiled.  Now that she was closer, Chell could see the faded auburn to her hair, lingering in a few streaks around her temples, and not all the lines in her face were from age.  She rested her cane against the cot, handling it as carefully as if the stubby metal thing were made of spun glass, and pulled over a chair.  "I found you outside the old Aperture Science facility," she said.  "You were pretty banged up, and from what I can tell, you've been exposed to a nasty neurotoxin."

She nodded, her head light and uncertain. _Oh yes.  Plenty of it.  But not quite enough to kill me._

"I'm afraid you'll probably always have a sensitivity to it," she added apologetically.  "Now, do you want to talk about what happened?"

Chell opened her mouth to say _yes, please_, but her throat seized up.  It wasn't just the time she'd spent silent; it was too much, too much to even begin to speak.  She raised a hand to her throat, uncertainly.

The woman's lips curved in a knowing smile.  "Don't worry.  It's a common stress reaction.  I've had it myself, on occasion."  She squeezed Chell's hand, turning her desperate grip into just a handshake.  "My name's Colette.  Dr. Colette Green, formerly of Black Mesa."

Black Mesa.  The name was familiar, and it took Chell a moment to place where she'd seen it: one of the slides in an empty hall, describing defense contracts.  A competitor, then.  Maybe they were just as crazy as Aperture had been . . . no, nothing else was that particular degree of crazy.

Colette watched her carefully.  "I've been in Cleveland for the last few weeks, trying to get into the old facility," she went on.  "Honestly, I'd just about given up by the time you did whatever you did.  Wouldn't even have known you were there otherwise; that part of the facility hadn't just been boarded up, the entrance had been sealed with concrete."

Chell nodded, remembering GLaDOS' remarks after she'd destroyed the morality core.  She didn't blame the people who'd left her in there. 

"I'd been planning to go back --"  Dr. Green stopped as Chell shook her head violently.  "No?  Not a good idea?"

An image flashed into Chell's head: Dr. Green limping down a hall while chirping voices on either side of her whispered _I see you_.  She shivered and met Dr. Green's eyes.  _Definitely not a good idea_.

Dr. Green nodded slowly.  "I see.  Well, it'd probably have been fruitless, since all the systems I was able to recover in one go were wiped clean."

_Good.  Let her rust and rot._

"Given the circumstances, that's a blessing of sorts," Dr. Green went on, then paused, brows drawn together.  "Stay down," she whispered as a high-pitched, tooth-rattling sound crept up from outside.

Chell obeyed as Dr. Green hit a sequence on the closest monitor.  The readouts shifted to something that Chell hoped had nothing to do with her internal organs, and Dr. Green let out a slow hiss of relief.  A weird blue light flared outside the window, leaking in through the blinds like questing fingers, scaling one window then the next, as if someone with a flashlight were drawing lines across them.

A second grumble of static rasped from one side of the building to the other, and the light paused, draining off into the distance.  Even then, Dr. Green didn't move for several long minutes, then exhaled slowly.  "Scanners," she said, her voice pitched low.  "The Combine's been all over the place since the explosion.  I'm surprised there aren't more around -- must be something keeping them busy -- though I can't say I'm sorry about it."  Her lips twisted.  "Be glad I got to you first."

Chell nodded.  Seeing her incomprehension, Dr. Green stood and helped her up.  "Have a look," she said, and cracked the blinds.

The world outside could have been a deserted office park, except "deserted" didn't even begin to come close.  Gaping holes pieced the buildings, some with small trees growing out of them, rusted hulks of cars -- including one destroyed Army humvee -- stood at angles that had nothing to do with the streets, and what looked very much like bones lay under a bush.  The sky was gray with oncoming evening, but no streetlights had come on.  No streetlights were even left, she saw after a second, and for some reason that struck her more than the bones.

For a second an image of what ought to have been there flared across her vision: blocky, uninspiring buildings, the sound of traffic nearby, people walking past . . . nothing.  Nothing of that remained. 

This wasn't what it was supposed to be like.  This was . . . Chell still wasn't sure what she remembered, but it sure as hell wasn't this. 

_Things have changed since you last left the building_, GLaDOS had said.  It was starting to look like that was one of the few truths among her lies. 

A low drone echoed overhead.  Dr. Green pulled her back from the window, but not before Chell glimpsed a convoy of . . . they couldn't be airplanes.  Ships, half-machine and half-animal, but not any animal Chell knew.  No human had ever thought up those ships.  _Aliens_, she thought, and it felt impossible, as impossible as . . . a crazed, superintelligent computer, maybe.

"You don't recognize them."

Chell shook her head.

"But you recognized Black Mesa."  Dr. Green's eyes narrowed, but in thought rather than suspicion.  "How long were you down there?"

Chell shrugged helplessly, trying to stop shaking.  Days?  Years?  Decades?  Maybe she'd even been born down there . . . hadn't GLaDOS said she'd had her backed up?  What did that even mean?  She drew a harsh breath and sat back on the cot. 

"Yes, get some rest.  Oh!"  Dr. Green snapped her fingers.  "Almost forgot."  She retreated through the door and returned carrying a familiar white shape.  "I found this with you.  Can't get it to work, but I thought you might want it."

The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.  The only thing that had kept her alive.  Chell held out her hands for it, and though she didn't yet slide her fingers into their accustomed position, the touch of it was comforting.

"Old friend, huh?"

Chell nodded, then, to her dismay, felt her eyes prickling.  _Old friend.  But I didn't have any friends.  I just had a cube, for a little while._  Stupid, stupid to be crying over a cube, and anyway it hadn't been her who'd written poetry to it and taped up pictures everywhere, she'd only known it a little while . . . but for now, she remembered it.

Dr. Green patted her shoulder.  "I understand," she said softly, glancing back at the door.  "We've all lost friends."

* * *

Over the next few days, Chell's strength returned, although the first few attempts to walk to the door and back were embarrassingly unsteady.  Dr. Green helped when she could, but for most of the time the older woman had her own work. 

And it was a strange work indeed, one that must have taken up all of the weeks she'd been here trying to get into Aperture Science.  She'd eschewed the other offices in favor of taking over the hallway, rigging up monitors and what Chell slowly began to guess were devices that jammed the Combine's scanners.  One end of the hall had been blocked by a long table that held what looked like nothing so much as a pile of red and gray cans.  There were gloves and what looked like metal boots among them, but Chell noticed at least two left gloves and decided she couldn't draw any conclusions. 

If the heap of blankets underneath this particular table was any indication, Dr. Green was also sleeping rough, and had been for a long time.

The cluttered table wasn't the only thing that set this apart from an deserted office building, she discovered the first time she attempted to walk all the way down the hall.  Dr. Green stumped alongside her, ready to steady her at any moment, though she never offered Chell her cane and indeed kept it out of her hands as much as possible.  But this time, her help wasn't needed, and it wasn't till Chell reached the atrium that her muscles finally weakened. 

Here, Dr. Green had been even more busy.  The glass ceiling above was blackened and opaque, but this had once been a two-story room with a wide, sweeping staircase.  Now it held a rickety platform suspended on a rickety metal scaffold, the whole thing festooned with cables leading to a console (behind which was yet another of the jamming consoles).  Chell stared, holding on to the wall, unable to even begin to assign a word to this thing.

"Teleporter," Dr. Green said, settling in between the consoles.  "Not my design; Eli and Izzy did all the conceptual work.  I'd never have thought of compressing the Xen relay, though Gina said it made perfect sense.  I just used their design and adapted it to what was available; they were always after us to come to their labs, even before Albuquerque . . ." She fell silent, staring off into the distance.  Then, as if concluding a ritual, she pressed two fingers to something on top of the taller console, shook her head, and continued her work, muttering under her breath.

Dr. Green's conversation was like that a lot: references to people whose names Chell didn't know, never any explanation as to who they were.  Chell paused a moment, regaining her breath, then hobbled to the consoles to see what Dr. Green had touched.

It was a makeshift shrine of sorts, laid out with more care than the teleporter for all that it was simpler.  Two photographs flanked a dented scrap of metal: one showed two women in lab coats side-by-side with a bearded man in a wheelchair.  The one on the left had to be a much younger Dr. Green, the other had her hair up in a bun and wore a manic grin. The other was a faded Polaroid showing what could have been the same two women, only in what looked like bulky armor, and their smiles this time were much more weary.  This one had two notes scrawled on it: _Made it! -- Keller_ across the bottom, and _We alone are escaped_ in shakier handwriting below that.  The gray metal was about a handspan wide, ragged around the edges, and an insignia marked the center of it: _lambda_, Chell thought, _that's the Greek letter lambda.  How do I know that_?

Regardless of how she knew it, that obviously wasn't the reason it was here.  That was the charred hole in the armor, an inch to the left of the insignia.  There might have been blood on it, once; now there was only soot.

Chell thought she knew who Gina might have been, at least.

If there were plans for what to do next, they weren't clear, and as the scanners came back time and time again, Dr. Green became more and more agitated despite how quickly Chell was returning to health.  Finally, the morning that Chell's system showed minimal traces of neurotoxin, Dr. Green brought her into the hallway and sat her down in one of the battered office chairs. 

"Here's the problem," Dr. Green said, still tinkering with the red-and-gray shells on the table.  "This place isn't safe.  If we . . . if things were as they'd been once, I'd risk it and keep you here."  She paused a moment, looking back at the little array of photos, the charred metal plate.  "But she's not -- I'm not what I used to be, not since Albuquerque.  I've got my own escape route, but --" a hard smile touched her lips, "I really don't want to subject you to that."

Not quite sure what she meant, Chell nodded. 

"So I'm going to send you to an old friend of mine.  If all's well, he's at White Forest with the rocket man.  If not, well, White Forest is still a damn sight safer than here.  I've put together a few things to help you on your way, but I didn't expect to keep having to run the jammers, and, well, I don't have enough power for either your suit or the teleport.  So I'm afraid I have to ask a favor of you."

Chell nodded, though part of her brain was still back on _your suit_ and another on _White Forest_.  The thought of more people was more than a little disturbing, even after getting used to Dr. Green.  She put a hand to her throat, still unsure whether she could make herself speak. 

"There ought to be a few power cells in the dump a half-mile north of here.  Any with residual power will do; I can rejuvenate them for a little while.  I'd do it myself, but --" She patted her leg.  "Can't move as fast as I used to."  A thought seemed to strike her, and she rummaged under the table.  "I can't give you much, but here."

The crowbar she held out was dented and scratched and even looked melted in one spot.  But for all that, there was no rust on it.  Chell took it, weighing it in her hand.  Was she supposed to be opening crates at the dump?

"The good news is that it shouldn't be too difficult.  The Combine's gone for the time being, though who knows how long that'll last.  This isn't bullsquid territory, the antlions should be quiet this far from the water, and houndeyes . . . well, if the Combine saw any, they'd have picked them up for conversion.  Cleveland's been deserted for a couple of years, too, so any zombies around should have either moved on or starved."

The words -- bullsquid?  antlion? -- went right past Chell in a blur, and the one she did know, _zombie_, couldn't mean what she thought it did.  Could it?

Dr. Green saw her expression and nodded.  "Don't worry.  Just -- if you see something that looks like a frozen turkey wandering around, whack it with the crowbar." 

_Frozen turkey.  Right.  I think I remember what turkeys look like._  She hefted the crowbar, hesitated, and pointed to the ASHPD.

Dr. Green shrugged.  "Like I said, it didn't seem to be working, but you're welcome to take it.  Just don't rely on it in a pinch.  Crowbar'll serve you better."

_Understood_.  Still, it did feel better just to have it again.  She rigged a sling for it from some of Dr. Green's rejected materials, then slid the crowbar so that it hung from the sling.  It felt a little odd -- _like a kindergartner playing at being a pirate_, she thought, and only a second later remembered what kindergartners and pirates were -- but it worked all right, and she headed outside, a sack in hand for the power cells.

The abandoned office park was even more desolate once she was out in it: wind whispered between the buildings and across the lots, cold and carrying a whiff of something like spoiled greens.  But it had one big advantage: it was _outside_, and the only thing above her was the sky.

The sky was the only familiar thing, it seemed.  She strained to see a skyline that should have been there, finding only a few spindly remnants on the horizon.  It was almost worse, not knowing if this was as it should have been, not having a memory to compare against the devastation of the landscape. 

It was as if she'd sprung fully-formed from the Relaxation Vault, a _tabula rasa_ for GLaDOS to scrawl on.  But there had to have been more before that.  Chell stared out at the broken buildings, then up at the empty blue sky.  _I can recognize the letter lambda.  That means something, right?  I can recognize an office park.  I know what a humvee is.  What does that add up to?_

_There must have been more.  I must have been _someone _before Aperture Science.  Unless . . . unless I was just made there, born or cloned or created solely for the tests . . ._

She shook her head, and when that didn't help to clear anything away, smacked her hand hard on the broken wall beside her.  The crowbar banged painfully against her leg, and she steadied it.  _I can't let myself worry about that.  I've got work to do._

It wasn't hard to find the waste dump: the Combine, whoever they were, had pretty much scooped out a crater from the park with no regard for where the buildings stood and piled it full of things that didn't even look fit for a landfill.  A few of the pieces seemed almost human-shaped, but at the same time looked as if they ought to plug into something.

Remembering the strange insect-machine that had flown overhead, Chell shivered. 

Power cells, power cells . . . what here looked like a power cell?  She poked at the closest rubble with the crowbar, then paused as a gleam across the crater drew her eye.  Something was glowing faintly, visible only in the shadow cast by one of the ruined offices.  She squinted at it then, experimentally, hefted the ASHPD. It couldn't hurt to try.

To her surprise, a blue portal opened where she pointed.  _Maybe Dr. Green was wrong_, she thought, and pointed the ASHPD at the closest wall.  The broken bricks prevented it from catching the first time, but an orange portal soon linked them.  Chell grinned and patted the ASHPD.  _Nice to have you back_.

She peered through.  Yes, enough room to stand, and yes, those glowing things did have the look of batteries of some sort.  She stepped through, only then realizing that the fleshy lump in front of the cells wasn't a rock but instead something ambulatory.  For a thing that lacked any recognizable features, it looked about as startled as she was.  And yes, it bore a strong resemblance to a plucked, raw, headless turkey.

The two of them stared -- if that was the word for something without eyes -- at each other for a second.  Then, with a shriek like a cat going through a grater, the turkey leapt for her head, revealing a beaked pit of a mouth.  Chell ducked under it, and as it landed on the far side of the portal, opened a new orange portal closer to her, leaving it stranded.

The thing grumbled, but it was too far away to do anything -- and a second one jumped from the ledge above, squalling.  One of its legs scratched down Chell's neck, and she batted it away, first with the ASHPD, then with the crowbar.  The flabby thump it made as she connected made her wish she hadn't eaten anything that morning.

_Turkeys.  Right_.

The power cells -- at least she really hoped they were power cells -- went into her bag, and she spied a few more.  Better to get them all and not have to come back, she reasoned, and ported over to them as well, dropping the next turkey to jump at her through to the far side of the portal.  Trash caught between her foot and heel spring, and she paused a moment to shake it free, wincing as the spring bounced back into place. Since they connected to the bones of her leg, anything but the inertial strike they were meant to minimize sent a shiver all the way to her teeth, and while catching half a bottle on one didn't hurt it still felt extraordinarily unpleasant.

_This isn't what it's supposed to be like_, she thought, dispatching another gibbering lump with the crowbar.  _None of this is right.  Not squealing eyeless things, not aliens, not waste dumps in the middle of office parks, nothing._

But then again, neither was the ASHPD, and she wasn't about to leave that behind.

Three portals (seven turkeys, one of which managed to rake her scalp before she splattered it all over her jumpsuit) later, she was almost starting to get used to it.  After all, these were horrible, but they didn't say "helloooo" or ask if she was still there in perky little voices.  _And they always go for my head.  Even when my unprotected legs are right there.  I wonder why --_

A low growl behind her sent ice down her spine, and automatically she ported back to the last safe spot.  From there, she watched as what she'd taken for a sodden heap of clothes got to its feet and lurched, moaning, around the trash as if seeking its prey.  It looked like it had once been human.  But the crusted, brown gash in its gut no longer showed human organs, and in place of its head --

_Oh.  Ugh.  Don't let one of them get my head.  Got it._  She hesitated, then opened a portal right above the -- zombie -- and dropped half an oil drum on it.  The thing snarled, but collapsed and lay still. 

After that, she had no desire to explore further.  Portal by portal, she leapfrogged back to Dr. Green's hideout, listening for more grumbling turkeys or any other unintelligible noises.  Finally, she opened portals on a pair of swinging doors and watched them vanish.  _No trail back here.  Good._

The peephole in the office door slid back, and Dr. Green peered through.  "Back so soon? Good."  She opened the door, but her smile faded as she saw Chell's splattered jumpsuit.  "Ouch.  Looks like you ran into some of our resident nasties.  Come on in, and we'll get you changed."

Chell gratefully sank into a chair.  Dr. Green handed her something like a first-aid kit, with a vial of bilious green liquid attached.  "Medkit.  Should still be good; those things last for ages.  The green stuff's something like a stimulant and something like a quick-heal nanotech -- I never understood it, just used it.  Keller could have told you; he put together the first few.  But, well, he's gone too." 

As she fiddled with the medkit, Dr. Green first examined the cells, then hooked up a few to what looked like a collapsed red and gray scarecrow.  "I used to know this guy -- well, you'll see him soon, he's the one I'm sending you to -- who domesticated one of those things you ran into.  Keeps it as a pet."  Chell shuddered.  Dr. Green saw and winked.  "Yes, he's a bit strange.  But he's got a good heart."

The scarecrow chimed, and the power cells flared and went dark.  "Ah.  There we go.  All right, strip down and we'll get you into this thing."

That got her attention, all right.

Dr. Green waved a hand.  "Trust me.  This is just some added protection for your journey.  I wish I'd had it ready for you just now; would have saved you some trouble with the headcrabs."  She held up pieces of the scarecrow -- which, Chell realized, wasn't that at all but a suit of armor, like some strange medieval knight.  Except this knight must have had terrible color sense.  "Gina originally designed these as protection against hazardous environments, but, well, Earth pretty much qualifies as a hazardous environment these days.  I've put this one together from pieces of our old suits."

Chell eyed it, thinking of the zombie and its claws.  On the chest of the suit was a little insignia: the lambda surrounded by the Aperture Science iris.  Dr. Green saw her expression and chuckled.  "I thought you might appreciate it."

Chell smiled.  _Thanks_.

Getting into the suit took more work than she'd expected, particularly around the heel springs.  (Having something against the soles of her feet felt weird enough to be outright creepy.)  Dr. Green examined the heel springs with a frown.  "That seal's not right . . . damn.  Well, try not to go wading in anything nasty till Kleiner gets a look at the suit.  Not that I think they'll have much around White Forest, but with the rocket man still working there, who knows."  She tapped the suit at the back of Chell's calf, where heel spring and suit didn't quite match up.  "And try not to get shot there if you can."

_Shot?_  Chell turned to look at her, but if it was a joke, Dr. Green gave no sign.  She straightened up, holding on to her cane.  "I did my best to repair what I could, but I'm no Gina.  The munitions in particular are crippled -- I could never figure out how she got the infinite capacity system going -- so you'll only be able to carry three weapons at a time.  But that should be plenty to get you where you're going."

She stepped back and regarded Chell critically.  "Vocal interface all right?  You can hear through the neural link?"

A woman's voice murmured in her ear: systems starting up, charging online, neural link engaged.  Chell froze, then relaxed as she identified the voice as not Hers.  The one thing the suit was not was inconspicuous: maybe this particular pattern of red and gray would blend in in a granite abbatoir, but that was it.  _I look like a deranged mechanical harlequin._

"Could be worse," Dr. Green said.  "Could be orange."

Chell shook her head. _I _like _orange_. But Dr. Green had already turned away.  "We stuck the new guy with orange," she added, coming up with a bulky helmet complete with shaded faceplate.  "This is one addition that's all my own.  I can tell you, Gina and I would have given our left arms for one of these when we were in Black Mesa."

She touched the scratch on her neck -- surprisingly, it didn't hurt nearly as much now -- and nodded.  Anything to keep the turkeys off.  She hesitated, then pointed to the photos and the plate -- the breastplate, she recognized, very like the one she was wearing but with a hole burned straight through it.

Dr. Green's face fell.  "No," she said quietly.  "No, it doesn't protect against everything."  She drew a slow, shivering breath.  "If there's no charge to the suit, it protects less, but it'll still hold off, say, one shot at a time," she went on briskly.  "Two in the same place, though, and you're in trouble.  Don't let that happen," she finished, and plopped the helmet over Chell's head before she could do anything.

The room darkened, then returned to normal, only with a small lightning bolt in the corner of Chell's vision, with the figure 78%.  Chell gave her a thumbs up, then picked up first the crowbar, then the ASHPD.

"I thought that was broken."  Chell shook her head.  "No?  Well, maybe it's a genelock.  May I see?"

Chell grinned.  _Show and tell!_  She eyed the atrium, then opened a portal high on the far wall, next to the teleporter.  Her fingers prickled as the ASHPD made contact, and she opened a second portal beside Dr. Cross, then ducked through and waved.  _See?  Best thing ever.  _

Dr. Green's measured interest dropped away, and she looked instead as if she'd been punched in the stomach.  "Extraordinary," she said finally.  "Completely new . . . may I see the device?"

Chell ducked back through the portal and happily surrendered it.  _Maybe you can tell me how it works.  And if there's anything I need to worry about -- I don't know, head cancer maybe, from going through so many portals._

Dr. Green turned the device over in her hands.  "I had no idea . . . none at all . . ." She paused, blinking.  "Could you plug the power cells into the teleporter?  They go right in the back -- you'll see when you get there." 

Chell picked up the bag of power cells and vaulted into the teleporter.  The suit felt strange around her, but not in a bad way, and somehow with it she felt a little more hopeful about meeting these new people at White Forest.  Maybe they'd be like Dr. Green . . . maybe Dr. Green could even follow her, in time . . . maybe she'd be able to find out more about who she was, who she'd been . . .

The last cell slotted into place, and the platform lurched under her.  Chell turned, banging her head on a dangling cable, to see Dr. Green retreating from the console with the ASHPD.  "I'm sorry," she said, backing away.  "You don't know how dangerous this is.  The Combine, if they knew -- I can't let this fall into their hands."

The platform began to rise off the ground, and behind her the power cells flared, casting blue-edged shadows across her feet.  Chell clung to the railing as the machinery started up around her.

Dr. Green's face contorted: shame, anguish, and a terrible desperation.  "You'll be all right -- they'll still help you at White Forest -- but I have to destroy this."

_Destroy it?  No!  No, it's the only thing I have --_  Chell fumbled with her helmet, trying to pull it off, plead with her, something.

A second later, she realized not all of the noise was from the teleporter.

Dr. Green heard it too, and she went dead white.  "No," she whispered, the word lost in the rising drone.  She set the ASHPD on the teleporter console and turned to the secondary console.  "Jammers, the jammers have to be working --"

Chell hesitated, eyeing the portals she'd used to demonstrate.  The orange one was close, almost close enough . . .

She'd risk it.  Anything to keep the one thing she knew was hers.  She ducked under the railing and jumped, her heel springs creaking as she landed.  Dr. Green turned, but Chell knocked her cane away and seized the ASHPD. 

On a last hope, she hit the main flashing light on the console and ran for the blue portal.  In, and falling, falling onto the teleporter platform just as the power cells started up their final shriek. 

"No!  No, please, you don't understand --" Dr. Green scrambled for her cane, lurching to the teleporter.  "If they get it -- if they learn --"

A roar sounded overhead, and Chell looked up to see the atrium window shatter, blackened glass falling all around her.  An insectile shadow hung overhead, and something uncannily like an Aperture Science High Energy Pellet rocketed down toward her.

Green light crackled, and she was gone, Dr. Green's voice echoing in her ears.


	2. Glad I'm Not You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following her escape from the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, Chell enters a world ruled by the Combine, meets new allies and enemies, and learns that sometimes it's not enough just to escape. (AU in that it ignores the new patch, the new ending, and any word of Portal 2.)
> 
> Chapter 2: A case of mistaken identity, insufficient explanations, gates of several kinds are opened, and a tower falls.

Worlds flashed into being around her, there and gone in less time than it took to draw breath: a desolate shore where creatures with the wrong number of joints (and legs and _heads_) turned incuriously to look at her; a mine shaft webbed like some huge spider's domain; a young woman firing down a long icy hallway; a broken and pitted skyline silhouetted against a dying sunset. 

This last stayed for longer than a second, and a final concussive thump pushed it over into reality -- and Chell with it, about three feet off the ground.  She landed on a heap of twisted concrete and rebar, twisting just in time to take the worst of the impact on her heel springs.  They creaked under her, and the suit shifted around the imperfect seal there, but she was all right. 

Wherever she was, it wasn't Cleveland.  Not unless several hours had passed while she was in the teleport (which she supposed wasn't impossible), turning afternoon into evening.  What was left of this city's buildings didn't feel like the right kind of architecture, either, though how she knew that she still couldn't quite say.  Instead of the drab institutional nature of the office park, these were institutional in a different way, like tenements of old Europe.  And in several places -- such as where she now stood -- the Combine had taken bites out of the surroundings in the same way as they'd constructed the dump.  Black metal barriers blocked the streets and strung across the buildings with no concern for aesthetics.  And as far as she could tell, the only connection it had with the office park was that it, too, was deserted.

Obviously not where she was supposed to end up.  But right now, she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to be where Dr. Green had intended to send her.

A low, sobbing moan came from behind her, turning into a too-close snarl, and Chell spun to see one of those zombie _things_ right behind her.  It slashed at her with both hands, raking its claws across her stomach, and had it not been for the suit Chell's intestines would have been on the ground. 

Without thinking, Chell raised the crowbar and bashed at the thing.  A portal would have been smarter, but right now it was _right in front of her_ and damned if she could think a way around --

The zombie didn't seem to have much concept of defense, and a few blows from the crowbar felled it.  Chell stood over the fallen creature, shivering, then forced herself to move away, to look around for more of those things.

A little ways away she found the zombie's last meal: a man in what looked like cobbled-together fatigues, a woolen hat askew on his head.  A shotgun lay fallen a few feet from him; either he hadn't gotten to it in time, or it hadn't done any good.  Chell bent and closed his eyes, then paused before taking the shotgun.  On his sleeve was a crudely drawn symbol: a yellow lambda.  Thoughtfully, she touched the symbol on her chest, then nodded and stood.  _Thank you_.

Several hours later -- it was hard to tell by the sky, and she sure as hell was not going to count by the number of things she'd killed -- she was glad she'd taken the shotgun.  More turkeys, especially hanging out in any place where she holed up for more than a few minutes.  More zombies, to the point that even the faintest moan had the hair on the back of her neck standing up.  A few of them, burlier and dressed in what looked like some kind of body armor (though it hadn't protected them) even tried to throw grenades, going on some remnant of instinct or hatred.  The rest seemed content just to swat barrels or crates at her. 

It was nasty, hard, painful work.  Still, she reckoned as she dropped a barrel marked FLAMMABLE through a portal onto an approaching cluster of zombies, it was better than the Enrichment Center.  Even if everything was trying to kill her, none of them were pretending that this was right, that this was all okay, that someday they'd look back on this and laugh.  And laugh.  And laugh.  She could even deal with the occasional disembodied female voice echoing through the city, mainly because she knew it wasn't talking to her. 

Dawn didn't come nearly soon enough, but when it did, the light brought more than just vision: a rattle of radios nearby, and the sound of human voices.  Chell ducked under the nearest cover as soon as she heard them, then paused.  She'd have to see people sooner or later.  Steeling herself, she crept over the nearest heap of rebar.

Three people knelt with their backs to her, hands behind their heads.  All were dressed like the dead man she'd taken the shotgun from, with the lambda on their sleeves.  The other three were . . . well, they were shaped like humans, anyway.  White masks smooth as skulls showed no trace of the faces behind them, and the speaker-like things over the mouths made Chell doubt that there even were faces. 

_Okay,_ she thought, getting to her feet and trying not to make any noise.  _I don't know the situation here, I don't know who's the good guys or if there are good guys, at least they're not zombies --_

The kneeling man in the middle started to speak, and the masked man behind him shot him in the back of the head. 

_Damn it!_  She opened a blue portal as high up as she could on the building, then opened an orange one under the closest masked man.  He barely had time for a startled, radio-garbled curse before shooting out of the portal and hitting the ground far below, an ominous whine replacing his voice.  His companion ran over to see what had happened, and Chell shifted the portal just enough to demonstrate.  The third spun to look at her, raising his gun, but she was quicker, and a new orange portal dropped him out the side of the building as well.  His chatter went on for a moment -- something about _anticitizen sighting_ \-- before he, too, hit the ground and went flatline. 

The remaining two people on their knees looked up hesitantly, as if fearing reinforcements.  "Oh my God," the man  on the left said, rising to his feet.  "Dr. Freeman?"

_What_?  Chell took a step back. 

"I knew it!  I knew you'd make it out of the city!"  He laughed and ran up to the edge of the rubble heap.  "Lamb, look, it's Dr. Freeman!"

His companion -- a small, dark-skinned woman with a perpetually worried expression -- had gone first to their fallen friend.  Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Chell.  "That's not him.  The legs are wrong."

He turned to look at her as Chell picked her way down the crumbled slope.  "Are you telling me that all the time we were following Freeman through the wreckage of City 17, you were checking out his legs?"

"No!  Of course not!  That's just not him.  The suit's wrong, too."  She bit her lip, one hand going to the empty holster at her waist.  "Besides, if that's Dr. Freeman, where's Alyx Vance?  She was with him when we left the station."

The man hesitated, then shrugged.  "Maybe she didn't make it out."

She snorted.  "As if he'd let that happen."

He shook his head and turned back to Chell.  "I'm Peter Tinasky.  This is Delia Lamb.  We were on our way to meet up with the chief when Civil Protection caught us."

Civil Protection.  Chell glanced back at where the bodies had fallen.  Looked like the custom of innocuous names for horrible things was still in effect here too.  Something twinkled in the rubble -- no, behind it -- and she shoved Tinasky out of the way.

Another skull-faced figure rose up behind the rubble, aiming a gun at her.  The bullet pinged off the suit, enough to knock her back half a step.  But she'd had the shotgun out, and that was just far enough to correct for her bad aim.  The radio blur of his voice ended in another flatline.

Tinasky was silent a moment, mouth agape.  Chell went over to where Lamb knelt and crouched next to the body.  He, too, had the same unshaven scruff, the same insignia on his shoulder.  _And if I hadn't hesitated_ \--

She closed his eyes, as she had on first arriving in this city.  Lamb eyed her, then got to her feet.  "We'd better keep moving," she said, taking a gun from the fallen Civil Protection officers.  "CP's on the move, and they'll be looking for you too now."

"We can lead you to HQ," Tinasky volunteered.

Chell started to shake her head.  She didn't know these people, and obviously they didn't know her.  (Whoever this Freeman was, she really hoped he wasn't going to be pissed off about the mistaken identity.)  The safer thing would be for her to hole up somewhere on her own, find food and water, maybe fortify a spot . . .

. . . start writing on the walls, draw pictures of the Companion Cube, leave handprints and secret messages everywhere . . .

She nodded, exaggerating it so it'd be clear.  Tinasky grinned like a loon, and even Lamb's face showed a trace of hope.  That was something she hadn't seen in a long time.

Into the warren of buildings, then, threading their way through more Civil Protection ambushes.  Some Chell managed to shoot, some she ported them away from, and some Tinasky got, since he was a decent shot when he wasn't rattling on about Dr. Freeman.  Into an abandoned sewer where glowing mines lined the ground (Tinasky went off on a tangent about how Dr. Freeman could totally use the gravity gun on them, he'd seen it before and it was the coolest thing ever, and finally Lamb had to go through the portal Chell had made to get around them and pull him through by his collar).  For whatever reason, Tinasky kept deferring to let Chell go on ahead even though she didn't know the way.  _I suppose it makes sense, since I've got the suit and can take a hit easier than he can, but damn, it's annoying_.  Judging by Lamb's comments, she thought so too.

This last started really straining her patience when Tinasky's final "shortcut" through an abandoned cellar turned out to be clogged with zombies.  They made it through, but at the cost of all of Chell's ammo and peace of mind.  Back to the crowbar it was. 

Luckily, from here on out it was just turkeys ("headcrabs," Lamb called them, which was probably a better name for them than turkeys), and with the helmet, she didn't need to worry so much about herself.  Chell dispatched a few, then paused as Tinasky pointed ahead.  "See?  Right there, you can see the entrance --"

A high-pitched, querulous squeal sounded beside her, and she looked down to see another headcrab -- but this one looked like a turkey that'd been left in the oven a little too long, charred and spindly.  Reflexively, she whacked it out of the air, only then noticing the second one by her leg, one limb reaching up to where the seal between suit and heel spring hadn't quite matched up. 

She felt a brief sting, just as she remembered Dr. Green's warning -- _don't get shot there_ \-- and lunged for it.  Numbness spread up from her leg as she brought the crowbar down, and Lamb's panicked shout faded into gray, along with the suit's alarmed beeping and, to top it off, her vision as well.

* * *

She woke with what felt like lead weights for limbs and the suit muttering in her ear about antitoxins.  _Ah.  So Dr. Green had been right about a lingering sensitivity to neurotoxin._ 

Which, apparently, the black headcrabs had.  _Noted: stay away from the charred turkeys._ 

The suit wasn't the only one muttering, and as her vision cleared, so did the ringing in her ears.  She blinked, trying to focus, and the sight through the helmet's faceplate came clear: ceiling tiles, and old ones at that.  The conversation near her began to resolve into separate voices.  "...get this straight," an man's voice said.  "You didn't get a name out of him, you didn't even get a look under that helmet thing, but when he goes down you bring him all the way _here_?"

"We couldn't just leave him," said Lamb, sounding both exasperated and defensive. 

Tinasky had to be next.  "Besides, we figured that you'd know if it really was Dr. Freeman --"

"It's not Gordon," the first man said.  "Not unless he suddenly shrank a foot and got those things on his legs in the process."

"Told you," Lamb muttered, and Chell grinned.  Even that hurt, but she could do it, and that was a step up.  She tried to wiggle her fingers, little ones first.

_Adjusting antitoxin levels based on anomalous user response_, the suit muttered, sounding just the slightest bit reproachful.  _Response logged for future use._  The heaviness on her limbs started to recede, leaving dull pain in its wake.

"On the other hand," the first man went on, "that's gotta be an HEV suit.  You say he helped you?"

"Saved our lives, sir.  CP caught us just outside the second checkpoint, and he stopped the execution."

"You should have seen him, chief!" Tinasky burst out.  "He had, like, this vaporization gun, and the CPs just vanished --"

"That's not how it works," Lamb hissed.

Chell moved on to stretching her feet out, grimacing at the pain returning to her extremities -- worst around the heel spring where she'd been hit, but bad enough everywhere else.  She was on something like a bench, maybe a low table, judging by where the voices were coming from, and there were things on either side of her...not people, not just yet.

"Vaporization gun.  Right.  And quit calling me 'chief.'"  He sighed.  "Krasnaya, you got those codes set?"

"Ready when you need them, sir."  That was a new woman's voice, somewhere past Chell's feet.  _All right_, Chell thought.  _Let's see how much I can move._

"Good.  See if you can get White Forest on the line.  I want to go to the experts on this. "

The suit finally finished its muttering, and she managed to turn her head.  Gray concrete walls marked with graffiti, the glow of a screen throwing blue shadows from somewhere nearby . . . and, right next to her, the white curve of a Civil Protection mask.

She jerked away, rolling off the bench and hitting the floor with a thud.  "Looks like he's up," the man said, and hands caught at her arms, dragging her upright.  "Easy, easy," he said, but damned if she was going to listen because what she could see in front of her was a uniform very like the ones of the men she'd dropped through a portal.  She grabbed for her crowbar, but it was gone, and someone -- Lamb? -- caught her arm and dragged it back.  "Jesus.  All right, let's take a look -- see if I remember how these things work --"

A hiss of air ran over her face as the helmet seal broke, and for a moment the display flared as if unsure how to adjust.  Chell winced away as hands lifted the helmet off her head.

"Holy --" Tinasky said behind her, and Lamb let out a bark of astonished laughter.  The man in the uniform before her, though, only frowned, his eyebrows rising.  "Well," he said.  "Definitely not Gordon."

Chell glared at him.  He wasn't much taller than her, at least not with the heel springs, and there was an awful lot of gray in his hair for someone who otherwise didn't look much past forty.  Then again, he did have the same weary, hardened look that Tinasky and Lamb both shared.

But that was a Civil Protection uniform . . .

He tucked her helmet under his arm.  "Okay.  You're in the Resistance HQ for City 12, what little of it there is.  You're safe here, as much as anyone's safe anywhere these days.  Mind telling me who you are?"

Chell remained mute.  Even if he was with the "resistance" Tinasky had mentioned, that didn't necessarily mean he was on her side.  She'd trusted Dr. Green, after all, and Dr. Green had tried to take the ASHPD from her. 

He gestured to her suit.  "That's a Hazardous Environment Suit, invented at Black Mesa.  Where'd you get it?"  He waited for her answer, then sighed.  "Oh, this is gonna be fun."

"I've got White Forest on the line," a woman's voice said, and Chell looked over his shoulder to see a small, pale woman seated at a console.  The wide, glowing screen before her was a far cry from Dr. Green's cracked and battered equipment, but it too had its share of dings and scratches, including one smaller screen broken by what looked like a bullet hole. 

"Good.  Maybe they can clear this up.  Watch her," he added to Tinasky and Lamb.  Chell's half-formed plan of just decking someone and running faded as he turned and she saw the huge rifle slung over his shoulder. 

"It's okay," Lamb said, though she didn't let go of Chell's arm.  (Tinasky, for his part, was still staring at her as if she might spontaneously turn into Dr. Freeman and prove him right after all.)  "You're safe."

_I want to believe that.  I really do._  Chell slumped a little, still aching from the headcrab's venom.

"White Forest, this is City 12, switching to visual," the woman at the screens -- Krasnaya? -- said.

The screens flickered from static blue to a grainy, distorted view of a man's scowling face, one that didn't get much nicer as he leaned back.  "Yes, yes, I see you -- oh.  Calhoun, this had better be important.  Some of us have vital calculations to get to."

"Crap," Calhoun muttered under his breath.  "Dr. Magnusson, good morning!  Is Dr. Kleiner around?"

"I certainly hope so, unless there's been a staff change without my knowledge.  He doesn't have any more time to chat than I do."  Magnusson stepped back from the screen and picked up a clipboard.  "What's the problem?"

Calhoun glanced back over his shoulder at Chell.  She repressed the urge to wave; _here I am, I'm the problem!_  "This woman turned up," he began.

Magnusson immediately turned his attention to the clipboard.  "Yes, yes."

"She's got what looks like an HEV suit, right down to the chest insignia.  A couple of my people mistook her for Gordon, even."  He paused, but Magnusson didn't answer.  "Thing is, she's about as talkative as Gordon, if you catch my drift.  And she's got these weird implant things in her legs, sticking out of the suit.  You know anything about that?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Calhoun."  Magnusson set down the clipboard.  "It's bad enough that you're calling out of nowhere, but do you have to take up valuable time with tales of your conquests?"

Calhoun gaped at the screen.  "What -- Have you heard a single word I've said?"

"Yes, yes, something about a woman with legs and chest implants and something.  All very interesting, I'm sure.  I realize the suppression field's down, but that's no reason for everyone to become so stunningly unprofessional."

Krasnaya stifled a laugh; Lamb was less successful at doing the same.  Calhoun's ears turned pink.  "Look, if you're not going to pay attention, will you put someone on who will?"

Magnusson started to reply, but the view through the screen lurched to one side, replaced with the squalling underside of a headcrab.  Chell cringed, but no one else seemed flustered -- except for Magnusson, who cursed and swiped ineffectually at it.  "Confound it, Kleiner, can't you keep your pet monstrosity under control?"

Calhoun chuckled.  "Yeah, put the head-humper on.  Maybe it'll listen more than you."

A new person -- this one bald and pale, if a little friendlier than Magnusson -- peered through and set the screen to rights.  "Now, Lamarr, I've told you -- aha!  Barney, is that you?"

Chell caught her breath, remembering Dr. Green's description of her friend, the friend who'd domesticated a headcrab.  There couldn't be more than one pet headcrab out there.  _Which means that place is where she meant to send me._

"Yeah, it's me," Calhoun said.  "Doc, we've got --"

"Wonderful!  I was just about to contact you.  We have a message that needs to go out."

"We don't have time for that, Doc.  A woman in an HEV suit turned up here, and unless you know of another one on this side of the Atlantic --"

"But this is fortuitous indeed!  You've just saved us the trouble of putting out a general alert!"  He peered closer, looking past Calhoun.  "Chell, is it?"

Chell's jaw dropped.  _My name.  He knows my name._  She nodded, staring.

Calhoun looked back at her.  "Chell, huh?"  She flicked a glance at him -- still so strange to hear her name spoken aloud, and having more than one person say it was even stranger.

"Indeed.  I've just received a message from Dr. Green informing me --"

"Dr. Green?  Colette?" Magnusson pulled Kleiner back from the screen, oblivious to the headcrab scuttling past with his clipboard.  "Wonderful!  Has she gotten her end of the teleporter working?  Will we see her here sometime?"

Kleiner's face fell.  "Er, actually, I'm afraid if this message is to be believed, she is, ah, no longer with us."

For a moment the words didn't mean anything.  Then Chell slumped back, her legs as nerveless as if another dose of headcrab venom had hit.  Lamb, thinking quickly, kicked the bench under her so that she had something to sink down on.  _No.  No, she was fine when I left her -- angry and damn near tears, but fine --_

_Fine with the atrium destroyed.  Fine with whatever it was that had provided the distraction still around.  And you didn't even think twice about it._  She lowered her face into her hands, then stopped as the gloves brushed her skin.  Gloves that Dr. Green had given her, along with the suit.

Calhoun watched her, noting her reaction.  "Hell," he said finally.  "I'm real sorry to hear that.  I remember what she and Dr. Cross did for us in Albuquerque a couple of years back."

"We all owed her," Magnusson said.  He looked as shocked as Chell felt.  "All of us."

"I concur," Kleiner said.  "But she did get one last communication out.  I'd send it, but it's badly damaged, and much of our equipment here is still in poor condition."

"I can probably clean it up," Krasnaya murmured.

"Send it anyway," Calhoun said.  "We'll see what we can make of it."

"Oh, certainly.  But the gist of it is this: she was looking for the old Aperture Science labs." Magnusson snorted at the name, but seemed too preoccupied to express more than perfunctory scorn.  "That's where she found Chell.  As I understand it," Kleiner went on, addressing Chell and Calhoun both, "both she and the device she carries were important to Aperture Science's research, and as such, it is vital that they stay out of Combine hands.  To that end, she intended to send her to White Forest.  However, a teleporter accident occurred, and Dr. Green thought she could be anywhere.  Fortunate indeed that she turned up with you, Barney!"

Calhoun's lips twisted at the words "teleporter accident," but he nodded.  "Right.  You want us to send her your way?"

Kleiner hesitated.  "Normally, I'd say yes, but in light of recent events . . ."  He paused, and the silence this time was deeper than before.  "I'm not certain I could guarantee her safety here.  Perhaps it's best she stay with you."

Calhoun shot another glance at her, this one more measuring than sour.  "All right.  Fine.  But send that transmission along, would you?"

"I will do so.  And Chell, welcome.  It's always good to have someone new with us.  And if you can perhaps send us the specs on your suit -- I'm curious as to how Dr. Green altered the old design --"

"Oh, for God's sake," Magnusson snapped, and switched off the transmission. 

Calhoun let out a long sigh, then turned to face her, scratching the back of his head.  "You couldn't have just said any of that?"

Chell glared at him, then very deliberately tapped the CP mask next to her and nodded to his clothes. 

He chuckled.  "Hey, some of us don't get the fancy body armor.  We have to scrounge what we can."  He crossed his arms and leaned back against the console.  "What do we do with you?  We can't spare anyone for a protection detail, not when we're so strapped for the dam assault already."

_The damn assaul_t?  Chell blinked, unsure she'd heard correctly. 

"Sir," Lamb said hesitantly.  "She was very good in a firefight back there.  Saved us several times over."

"Huh.  And she is one more body on our side."  He gazed at Chell a moment longer.  "Fine.  You'll come with us for the assault.  Either help or stay out of the way, but you don't leave my sight, okay?"  Chell nodded.  "Right.  Lamb, Tinasky, saddle up."

The two nodded and left.  Chell got to her feet and slung the ASPHD over her shoulder.  "Hold up a sec, Chell," Calhoun said as she turned to follow them.  He'd picked up her helmet and was turning it between his hands.  "Maybe it's just the time I spent undercover that's made me a suspicious bastard, but it's going to take a little more than a conveniently garbled transmission to make me trust you."

Chell bit back a retort.  He had a point.

"The thing about those HEV suits is that they give you one hell of an advantage over us mooks.  But I do know one other thing about them."  He gave her helmet one last twirl and set it back on the console.  "Without this, they don't protect against headshots.  So this stays here, and if I get one whiff of funny business from you . . ."  He tapped his forehead meaningfully.

A humorless smile pulled at her lips.  Yeah, she got the point.  And, strangely enough, it was the least crazy thing she'd heard all day.

* * *

The plan, as much as she could figure it, was this: City 12 (which could not have been its real name) got most of its power not from a reactor but from a hydroelectric plant, one of the last remaining since, as Lamb put it, "the damned Combine keeps drinking everything up."  Thus, getting control of the city hinged on getting control of the power.  With it, they could take on a siege; without it, their resources were too strained, at least for a prolonged fight.  "And that's what's this is going to be," Calhoun said as they emerged from HQ onto the top of a building.  "If we're going to take back anything, we'll have to start by establishing a foothold."

The words weren't meant for her so much as for the other Resistance members.  Most of them looked as desperate as Lamb and Tinasky, if considerably more competent than the latter.  The thought occurred to Chell that she really wouldn't want to be on the opposite side from these people, aliens or not. 

They'd noticed her as well, and a whisper spread through them like ink in water.  More and more of the Resistance members looked to her with something between Lamb's guarded hope and Tinasky's open worship.  Either Calhoun saw no point in elaborating on her presence or, more likely, he'd decided to use it as an unspoken morale boost.  Regardless, the attention made her more than a little uncomfortable, and Chell turned her attention to the view.

From here she could see the partly-demolished neighborhood where she'd spent the night, as well as the blocky buildings that made up most of this part of the city, marred here and there by black barricades.  If this was a Combine city, it couldn't have been that way to begin with; they must have just taken an older city and planted their flag everywhere without care for how the people living in it felt.  That seemed to match up with what she'd learned about them so far.

The city stretched out to her left, but to her right the horizon ended in what she slowly realized was a huge crater.  That wasn't quite true: the remnants of buildings strewn across the far side of the crate indicated that there had once been a larger city, now long gone.  It was at the edge of this crater that the black scar of a dam stood, a spindly tower beside it like a skeletal watcher.

"Kind of a backwater, huh?" Calhoun said beside her.  "Maybe I spent too much time in City 17, but this really feels like out in the sticks.  Still," he added, scanning back the way they'd come, "half the reason we've made any inroads is that this _is_ such a backwater; the Combine didn't have much here in the first place.  And now they're focused up north --"  He stopped.  "Wish I could be there to help," he said under his breath.

She glanced at him, then beyond, where the morning light showed one building she hadn't yet noticed: a squat black cylinder, gleaming with a sickly light.  _That can't be part of the original city.  _She started to point at it, then paused as a low drone rose to fill the air.

Calhoun and the other Resistance members noticed it too.  "Crap.  Gunship!  Move!"  he yelled, and they scattered across the rooftop, some descending through the building, some down the ladders.  Chell followed him to the closest ladder, eyed the drop, and just jumped for it, trusting her heel springs to minimize the impact.  They did, creaking a little, and she recovered just as Calhoun dropped the last few feet.

He stared at her.  "How did -- Never mind.  Go!" 

Above them, visible between the buildings as they ran, one of those insectile machines hovered, this one with two great compound eyes that sought them out and -- more importantly -- a gun.  Two Resistance members, running on ahead, went down in a spray of bullets, and Calhoun checked and turned down the nearest street, toward a scaffolded building, pulling a radio from his belt.  "Rockets!" he yelled.  "Franklin, tell me you're actually doing something with those rockets up there and not just screwing around!"

A man's voice crackled over the radio, too low for Chell to understand, followed by a whistle and explosion above them as something struck the gunship.  Running away and holing up somewhere was starting to look like the better plan.  Chell followed him anyway, ducking underneath the scaffold.  The gunship's barrage changed tenor as its bullets hit the scaffold, ending in an ominous creak. 

With a curse, Calhoun grabbed her arm and pulled her into the nearest doorway just as the whole mess of timber and cinderblocks came down.  For a moment, neither of them could see a thing, and Chell mentally cursed him for taking her helmet.  When the dust cleared, though, there was worse to be seen: the doorway they'd ducked into was blocked on both sides. 

"Damn it!"  Calhoun spat dust and wiped his mouth.  "It's the suit, isn't it? They make those things out of gunship bait or something?"

Chell gave him an exasperated glare, but he ignored it, taking out the radio again as a man's voice crackled over it, high with panic.  "We're all right," he responded, thumping his fist against the rubble.  "But we're trapped for now. Stick with the plan, get those bypass codes uploaded.  I'll find another way around." 

She squinted through the one hole high up in the rubble.  Hard to say, but she could see a wall through it, and there might be a way . . . She unslung the ASHPD.

"Whoa!  Hang on just one second there --" 

Chell cast an irritated glance over her shoulder -- _you want to get out of here or not?_ \-- and fired.  Yes, a blue portal opened up on a far wall. Now to see if it was any good. 

Calhoun kept the rifle trained on her, but his expression went from wary to outright confused as she fired an orange portal at the closest wall.  "What in the hell . . ." 

She poked her head through.  Luck was with her; she'd managed to get just above a concrete overhang.  Not that a drop would have been much of a problem for her, but Calhoun wouldn't have made it without a broken leg, and somehow leaving him behind didn't sit well with her.  That, and he'd probably shoot her for it.  She stepped through and turned back to face him, beckoning. 

He looked from her to the edges of the portal and back.  "That -- how --"  He stepped through, then back, then through again.  "You did this?"

Chell patted the ASHPD.  _Technically, this did_.

He glanced back through the portal.  "So it's like some kind of, of gate gun, right?"

_Close enough_.  She nodded.

"Can I have a look?"

Chell stepped back, close to the edge of the overhang, clutching the ASHPD to her chest. 

"Okay, okay, fine."  He shook his head and peered over the edge, looking for a safe way down.  The radio chirped, and he automatically picked it up, shifting his rifle to one hand with the ease of long practice.  "Franklin, we're out and on our way.  What's wrong?"

A woman's voice answered instead.  "Franklin's dead, sir.  This is Perkins."

Calhoun switched off the radio long enough to curse.  "Perkins, what's the holdup?"

"Bypass codes aren't working, sir!  They're still running the gates from the comm tower, and we can't get in without them picking us off."

"Crap."  He paused, tapping the radio against his leg, then glanced at Chell.  "Perkins, hold your position.  I might be able to find a way around this.  Don't go in without my say-so."

"Believe me, we're not going anywhere."

He replaced the radio at his belt and pointed to the lone black spire, the one Chell had seen from HQ.  "Any chance your gate gun can get us up there?  We'd hoped to bypass their security, but taking it out will do."

Chell glanced at the comm tower.  No, she couldn't open a portal directly -- the walkway around the top blocked her view -- but the caved-in roof of a nearby building had a collapsed slab at just the right angle.  _If I can get enough momentum . . ._

She nodded.  Before he could say anything, opened an orange portal as high up on the opposite wall as she could, and jumped down into a hastily-aimed blue portal. 

Timing was with her; she opened a new orange portal just as she emerged, right onto the slab, then a fresh blue one underneath her feet as she fell. Through, and across, City 12 wheeling below her as she traced an arc above it --

\-- too _far_ \--

She twisted in midair, throwing what little of her weight now made a difference to her right and not so much landing on the tower walkway as scraping along it, clawing at the railing to keep from a fall that even the heel springs couldn't mitigate.  For a moment she hung on, panting, while the city stopped spinning as much in her head as outside.  _Guess that slab wasn't so perfectly placed after all_.  Turned out there was one hell of a difference between portal jumping in a controlled environment designed for testing and portal jumping in the remnants of a city.

After a second more of regaining her breath and waiting for the roaring in her ears to give way to the sound of the wind, she opened a portal on the wall behind her, under a high grate, then leaned over the railing and aimed a second one behind Calhoun, expecting him to be lining up a headshot.  He didn't even notice, and when she turned to look through the portal she saw he was still staring after her.  ". . . wow . . ." he said, just audible above the wind.

Chell allowed herself a smile, stuck two fingers in her mouth, and whistled.  Calhoun spun around, stared a second, then walked through, grinning.  "Hot damn, Chell.  I don't think I've ever seen anything like --"

His expression changed from admiration to alarm, and he pulled her back from the railing, firing past her -- just as two more Civil Protection officers came around this side of the tower as well.  These weren't CP, though, she thought as she switched to the shotgun and put her back against Calhoun's; these were bulkier, outfitted in armor very like the more vicious zombies she'd faced.  A lucky shot took the first one down, and the second seemed startled enough by her -- maybe by the suit instead -- that she managed to down him as well.  Calhoun yelled something unintelligible but encouraging over his shoulder, and she gritted her teeth as more footsteps clanged on the walkway.

The soldier who looked around the corner next, though, was all in white with a single red eye, and it was something deeper than instinct that made her fire at it, again and again until a dry click was all that emerged.

"Easy!  Easy, there, you got him already!"  Calhoun edged around her, ducking as she awkwardly swung the shotgun around.  He started to say something more, saw her face, and stopped.  "You all right?"

Chell drew a shivering breath and looked down at the Combine soldier.  The red light in its eye -- or what passed for it -- was off, and it was clearly human or had once been.  And it wasn't saying _I don't blame you_ or anything like that as it died.  She nodded, a little shakily. _No.  No, I'm not all right, but I can't afford to be otherwise right now_. 

"Good."  He bent and took a few shells from the first soldier's fallen weapon.  "Here.  Don't waste ammo."

Numbly, she took them and, after a moment's fumbling, loaded the shotgun.  Funny, how after a night of zombies that was becoming second nature, and yet one single red eye could still spook her.  Calhoun took a weird glowing pod from the body of the white soldier.  "Right.  There ought to be a hatch on the far side, leading into the main control room."

Chell glanced at the portal he'd come through, then at the grate above it.  Through it, she could hear the drone of Combine intercoms.  She pointed, then fired a portal through it.

The portal beside them switched to the overhead view of a small room with monitors on all sides, all glowing an unhealthy blue.  More of the Combine soldiers were within, working at the consoles and paying no attention to the portal in the ceiling.  Calhoun's lips curved in a wicked smile.  He motioned for Chell to stand back, then fired the little glowing pod through the portal. She caught a glimpse of the High Energy Pellet lookalike ricocheting around the room, and the Combine chatter within abruptly cut off in a crackle of static and flatlines.  A horrible burnt stink followed, and when she looked back in, all that was left of the soldiers was a thin black residue. 

Calhoun chuckled and jumped in, stumbling a little from the gravity shift.  "First things first," he said, and typed in a long string of commands to the closest console.  The blue screens went red-veined in an unsettlingly bloody pattern, and he ended by backing up and just shooting it.  "There.  Now they'll have to cut their way through five doors to get up here.  And I have a feeling they'll have too much on their hands to bother with that."  He picked up his radio again.  "Perkins, go ahead.  We've got the comm tower, and I have gate control."

The radio squawked, and he started work on another console, bringing up image after image of blueprints, security cameras, gates.  "Never mind how!  Just go!" 

On the largest screen, the image shifted to a set of gates opening -- and three more closing, to the startlement of the Combine soldiers manning them.  "Monitors and gates, making sure the right people get in . . . this takes me back.  All I need is a mug of bad coffee and the sports section . . . so what was it you did, back at Aperture?  Were you, what, a scientist or something --"

Chell snorted a laugh and shook her head.  _I wasn't even a full-time employee_.

Calhoun glanced sideways at her.  "Huh.  Not sure why you found that funny, but I'm kind of glad you did."  She looked up at that, but he'd returned to the console.  "Gates are open . . . let's see how clear I can keep the path.  Turrets . . . damn, they've switched to secondary control.  If I could get those under control, this'd be a cakewalk."

Chell glanced over his shoulder.  The map was a little hard to follow, but from what she could tell, the secondary control was halfway across the dam, right where the Resistance was headed.  _And if I remember right, I could see it from the top . . . I could port down there._  She nudged Calhoun, then tapped the ASHPD. 

He looked dubious.  "You're sure?  I'd be able to guide you, but I couldn't do much else -- I've kind of got my hands full clearing the way." 

_It'll keep a few more people from getting shot.  And I've got the suit._   But to do it, she'd have to leave him here, unprotected.

Calhoun seemed to guess her thoughts.  "Don't worry about me.  Like I said, five doors to get through, and they've got other problems.  Besides, it's not as if I'm unarmed.  Hell, I'd be more worried about you."

She tapped the ASHPD again and tried to look confident.  He chuckled and shook his head.  "Maybe there is something in those suits, after all; you folks take the damnedest risks . . . Fine.  But get under cover as soon as possible."

Back through the portal, then, and out onto the dam itself.  A gunshot pinged by her head as she emerged, and she leapfrogged across the dam, trying to stay out of reach of whoever had noticed her.  At the end of the walkway she nearly ran into the Combine soldier who'd been shooting.  His surprise -- first at her appearance, then at the door automatically opening behind him -- lasted just long enough for her to open a new set of portals and drop him off the dam. 

Inside, Calhoun's face flickered into view on another of the blue monitors.  "Great!  Two doors down, and to your left.  I'll try to keep them off you."

Easier said than done, she decided as some gates didn't close quite in time and some closed too soon -- but this was a game of cat and mouse, and the mouse had a portable hole.  And she was _good_ at this.  Even the turrets -- wall-mounted guns that locked on to anything that didn't flash a Combine ID -- didn't pose a threat to someone who'd made it through the Enrichment Center.

Well, maybe that was an exaggeration, she admitted after the third one winged her.  But so far, Dr. Green had been right about the suit protecting her.

With Calhoun guiding her from the monitors, she made her way into the complex, deep enough that the sound of fighting from the Resistance attack seemed around every other corner.  The Combine soldiers who saw her had the same shock reaction as the ones on the tower (more of them sent garbled "anticitizen" messages, which she suspected might be something to do with the Freeman person), and she used that moment to get ahead of them, dropping them from floor to ceiling when she couldn't just avoid them.

Turret control turned out to be a lever at the top of a bunker in the central room of the complex. Chell considered her options, then settled on just dropping the closest oil drum on soldier after soldier, sometimes adding their compatriots' bodies to the heap of stuff-to-be-dropped.  _Regardless of whether this actually works_, she thought, _it's _got_ to be messing with their heads.  And I think I'm okay with that.  _When the last soldier had looked up to see the same damn barrel heading his way at terminal velocity, Chell simply ported over to the bunker and flipped the switch, ducking behind the nearest concrete wall in case that brought on a new assault.

It did; a dozen new soldiers appeared from the far two entrances.  But that wasn't all. "Got it!"  Calhoun laughed gleefully as the turrets swiveled around and began mowing down Combine soldiers.  "Yes!  Eat this, you socket-screwing bastards!" 

_He sounds happy as a kid with a new toy truck_, she thought, and leaned against the wall.  It seemed like only a minute before the doors parted, letting in a flood of Resistance members.  The first one in was, thankfully, not Tinasky.  She looked up and waved at Chell.  "Thank you!  We've got it now -- now we just have to keep it!" 

_Great.  I'm going back to get Calhoun._  She turned to the monitor, where Calhoun was quite happily massacring Combine soldiers with their own weaponry, and tried to figure out how to get his attention.

A wash of static flooded the screen, and Calhoun looked up, facing offscreen.  "Aw, _crap_," he said, and the screen flared so bright she looked away.  The burr of Combine voices flooded the speaker, followed by a pained grunt, and when the screen cleared again it showed, only briefly, the hollow skull-face of a CP officer's mask.

Chell took off running, ignoring the last few Resistance members who followed her.  She emerged into daylight in time to see a helicopter retreat from the comm tower -- and the tower itself explode.


	3. Someone Else to Help You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following her escape from the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, Chell enters a world ruled by the Combine, meets new allies and enemies, and learns that sometimes it's not enough just to escape. (AU in that it ignores the new patch, the new ending, and any word of Portal 2.)
> 
> Chapter 3: The advantages of not being Freeman, Aperture Science gets dissed, the fun ends too soon, and making it quick.

Chell ducked away from the blast, but too late: the image was already painted on her retinas, a blot wherever she looked.  _Not again.  Not after I left Dr. Green the same way._  She ran toward the smoking remnant of the tower, stopping only when a bullet plowed into the concrete ahead of her.

A second gunshot echoed off the dam, and she flinched away, but this one was friendly.  The Combine sniper who'd taken a shot at her collapsed onto the walkway, and Tinasky jumped down after him.  "They got the chief!" he hollered.  "We saw them drag him out!"

Lamb followed a few paces behind, a shallow cut across her cheek.  "They took him in the chopper," she said, and pointed out across the city.  "Looked like they were headed to Block D."

_Not dead.  Okay.  Okay, I can work with that._  Chell took a deep breath, blinking away the afterimage of the exploded tower. 

"Block D?"  Tinasky shook his head, an almost manic despair on his face.  "That's it, then.  We've seen the last of the chief -- if he's lucky, he's dead already."

Without thinking, Chell backhanded him; not hard, but enough that he staggered back, one hand going to his face.  _I don't care what's in there, there's nothing lucky about being dead._

Lamb hesitated.  "There is a way in," she said slowly.

"Are you crazy?  No one gets out of there!"

"That's what they said about the Citadel," Lamb said, raising her eyes to meet Chell's.  "And Freeman went in and got the Vances out of there."

"You're the one who kept telling me she wasn't Dr. Freeman!"

Lamb rounded on him.  "And that's not the Citadel, okay?  This is just City 12, and that's just Block D.  It's bad enough, but don't go making it --"  She stopped herself and turned back to Chell.  "Look, there's no time.  A supply train into Block D will be passing by soon.  We'd planned to dynamite the tracks, but this took precedence.  If you can get on that train, you can get in."

Chell hesitated -- getting on a moving train sounded a little beyond even the ASHPD's capabilities, and this was turning into one of her crazier decisions -- but the memory of Dr. Green's face just before she teleported away stuck with her, as did Calhoun's last glance offscreen.  She nodded.

Lamb pointed ahead, toward the far end of the dam.  "It's this way."  She hitched her rifle onto her shoulder and started off.

"Hey -- hey, wait!"  Tinasky caught up to them after a couple steps.  "Dr. Chell, if you can get him out of there --"

"_Doctor_ Chell?" Lamb muttered, and Chell shrugged at her. 

"If you can get him out of there, great.  If it's too late, if they got to him already -- well -- just make it quick, is all."

"On that we agree," Lamb said after a second.  "We'd all ask the same.  And he is the chief, after all."

_It doesn't matter who he is,_ Chell thought as she followed Lamb down.  _It matters who I am.  And I won't be someone who leaves anyone else behind._

Lamb led her to a low bridge overlooking a set of tracks.  One side angled away from the city, along the edge of the crater; the other led into the squat black building she'd seen from the roof of HQ.  _Figures_.  "They'll have selective fields over parts of the track, but I don't think it stretches the whole way," Lamb said, pointing ahead.  "Good luck."

Questioning her own sanity (not for the first time), Chell opened a portal at the apex of the next bridge down, then one on the ground next to her, just as the tracks started to rattle.  A thin, silvery train shot down the track and under their bridge, headed for the next.  Chell watched the portal and counted under her breath: one, two, three, _now._ 

She jumped through, landing with a screech of metal on metal as her heel springs sparked against the roof of the last car.  The ASHPD banged first against the roof, then her chin, and she skidded back a foot before catching hold of a rung at the very end of the train.  _Not one of my brighter ideas,_ she thought through the haze.

Ahead, a blue glitter like an Aperture Science Emancipation Grill stretched across the track.  _Probably the selective field Lamb mentioned . . . at this speed, I'll end up smeared over it.  Really not my brightest idea_.  She squinted ahead, trying to see a gap -- there, just at the top, where the black arch of a Combine wall didn't quite match up.  She aimed a portal through the gap, then opened a fresh one on the ground and leapt off the train, timing it so that she ended up practically on the nose of the train.  _Can't do that again,_ she thought, trying to catch her breath.  _At least I'm almost there.  I think._

Unfortunately, another forcefield glittered ahead, too close for her to scramble to the back of the train and try again.  Instead, she aimed a little to the side, hoping to get to the side of the track somehow -- all she needed was to get inside, not necessarily still clinging to the train.

This portal, though, landed her right in the middle of a cluster of soldiers.  On top of one, actually, and his startled grunt and flatline would have been funny if she hadn't been the one facing his companions.  They stared at her, expressionlessly horrified, and Chell waved before firing a portal through the closest grate, dropping out of sight just as they brought their weapons to bear.

The grate dropped her further -- this time into some kind of storage room stacked high with barrels.  From here, she could see out the grills onto the track, where the train was slowing as it reached the center of Block D.  She bumped against one of the barrels as she tried to look, then stopped, her heart pounding.  Every single one of them had the same FLAMMABLE label as the ones she'd dropped on zombies all night.

A plan began to take shape, and she opened a portal above the track, right where the train would stop.  Then, one by one, she started dropping barrels through.

Explosions echoed from the grills and the portals both, and it wasn't till she dropped the last barrel that she realized that they weren't stopping.  Curiously, she peered back through the grill to see the whole train on fire, High Energy Pellets flying back and forth, Combine soldiers running to contain it and utterly failing.  _Good.  Now no one's going to have time to follow a phantom in a suit._

Still, she stuck to the space behind the grates, porting across the few hallways she saw rather than walk in the open.  The inside of Block D was a mesh of black metal and glass, dim blue light and crackling electricity, and her heel springs echoed with every step.  After the mess of City 12's streets, it felt more than a little like the Enrichment Center: sterile, ugly, inimical. 

At one point she found a chasm that split the entire building like a gash from an axe: things like huge wingless moths hung from the sides -- like the airship that had chased them into the scaffolding, she recognized, only these were dormant for now.  All around them a cluster of smaller, sticklike workers scrambled around, ministering to them, and a single platform hung suspended between the sides of the chasm, seemingly unsupported.  She stared at it, unable to quite make sense of how the whole thing worked, then turned back.

_This is bananas_, she thought as she crawled back through the interstices, peering out to watch more soldiers run past.  _This is something an action hero would do, not a -- a whatever I was.  A test subject.  But they don't know that; they're scared because they think I'm Freeman, not because of anything I've done._

She paused, considering her actions with the barrels.  _Okay.  Maybe I've done a little.  Not nearly enough for a full-scale freakout.  Wonder if this Freeman guy felt the same way._

No sign of Calhoun yet, or even any idea where they'd be keeping him.  The detached female voice that relayed orders requested an "information retrieval specialist" in between assertions that combustion prevention teams were required on levels two through six.  She paused to listen, and the floor dropped out from under her.

She had only enough time to think _so this is what it feels like_ before realizing it wasn't a portal, it was just a weak spot in the vent floor, and with the realization came a crackle of energy.  A brilliant column of light shivered from floor to ceiling, and she fell alongside it -- then, as she hit a slanted panel, almost into it.  Sudden heat flared over her, and she twisted in place, landing hard on the floor beside the column.  _Goddamn shoddy alien workmanship_, she thought, and tried to get her breath back.  From here there were no ready exits, only vents that could have been for air circulation, could have been for maintenance, could have been for hiding from insane computers if need be.  She chose one at random -- well, almost random; it was the closest and looked the most stable -- and crawled into it.

The smell of burnt hair followed her down the vent away from the reactor (or whatever the hell it was; you didn't just leave energy like that unshielded without a reason, did you?  Maybe if you were aliens you did).  Chell fervently hoped the Combine didn't have bloodhounds, or even functioning noses.

A voice echoed from the next juncture, and she paused, bracing herself against the vent wall.  It wasn't Calhoun's, but it was human, without the guttural augmentation she'd come to associate with the Combine.  ". . . was a joke!" the man's voice said as she edged further along.  "They made shower curtains, for God's sake!  No, it's quite obvious what this is: a feeble distraction meant to fool us into diverting our forces from the real work up north.  What I want to know is why they chose this particular method and how long they've been planning it."

"You sure you don't want us to just send him up to conversion?"  That was definitely a Combine voice, even if it took her a moment to understand it.

"Oh, go ahead when you're done.  We can always use another stalker.  But I am not asking any of our benefactors to bother with something this trivial.  I suspect you can get some usable material out of him aside from this."  The voice was coming from right ahead of her, through this wall, but she couldn't see any way through.  No vents, no grates, nothing.  Chell scuttled from one air shaft to the next, trying to see any hint of light, anything that'd let her into the room.  "That is, unless you'd like to volunteer any information, Mister Calhoun?"

Calhoun's response was so low she barely heard it.  ". . . already said everything I've got to say to you."

"Yes, all two words of it.  Very eloquent.  But then, I expected little more from someone whose life before the war consisted of guarding the donuts from the Anomalous Materials department."

Calhoun coughed, a wracking sound that made Chell pause even as she searched for a way in.  "Big talk for someone who won't even show his own face.  Whatsa matter, not pretty enough for the big screen any more?"

She heard a smack, followed by a thud.  Looking up, she finally found her entrance: a little grate, no larger than a cat, set into the wall overhead.  She braced herself against the vent and crab-climbed her way up.

"Get what you can," said the same voice, only now she was reluctant to call it human regardless of its timbre.  "Then get rid of him."  An electronic chirp followed; a signal shutting off.

A Combine soldier chuckled.  "You heard the man.  You, get to work writing up the interrogation log.  If you get lucky, he might even say some of what you write."

"Ten creds says he doesn't," another muttered.

"I'll take that bet.  Let's give him a dose."

Chell pulled herself up and peered into the grate, ASHPD at the ready.  The room was not unlike the top of the comm tower: blue-glowing screens  (one of which had just gone dark), black metal lockers, and the omnipresent rumble of Combine technology.  Four Combine soldiers -- and one of the white cyclopeans -- clustered around what looked like nothing so much as a hanging coffin.  Calhoun hung within, his arms pinned to his sides, and she couldn't see his face. 

As she watched, the white-clad one did something with the device in its hands, and a tooth-rattling whine echoed up through the room.  Calhoun's body stiffened, arching back against the restraining metal, and he let out a hoarse cry that rose into a scream.

"Do it again," the closest soldier said.

The white one shook his -- her? -- head.  "You have to have a fine touch," it said, walking out of Chell's limited field of vision.  "One guy last week snapped his own neck.  Ended the fun too soon."

Chell cursed silently and dropped back down.  A thought struck her, and she crouched back down into the first vent, scrambling as fast as she could back to the reactor.

The shield panels -- the same ones she'd bounced off of -- were angled so that if someone came flying out of there with even a little momentum, they'd go where she wanted.  Chell set an orange portal in place and hurried back.

This time she wasn't even halfway back before she heard Calhoun's scream.  No human should have been able to make a sound like that.  She clambered up to the grate, heedless of the noise she was making, and aimed the ASHPD.

Blue portal under the feet of the closest soldier.  One down.  Another under the next, shifting as his friend ran to see what had happened.  The sizzle of burnt Combine filled the air before and behind.  Two more in quick succession, the last firing a round uselessly into the wall.

The one in white, though, was smarter than the rest, ducking behind the closest locker and out of Chell's view. She hissed through her teeth, then opened a new orange portal behind her and fell back, firing as she emerged.  New orange portal, right above where the soldier had retreated, and, as she dropped back through, blue portal beneath both of them.

The white soldier yelled as they fell together, and Chell raised the ASHPD, knocking the controls out of its hands.  She kicked the soldier a second time, knocking herself out of the line between portals, and hit the ground with a grunt.  The controls had landed beside her, and she fumbled at them till the tooth-loosening sound ceased and Calhoun slumped in the coffin.   She glanced at him, then back at the soldier in white, locked into the portal loop and perpetually falling.  _Ended the fun too soon_, she thought, and removed the blue portal.

The soldier didn't so much hit the floor as splash against it.  Chell turned her back on what was left, searching for the controls on the coffin.  Calhoun was breathing, but he didn't respond.  She slammed her hand against the central rib, where the restraints joined.

Apparently that was it.  The restraints opened, and Calhoun practically fell on her.  She staggered back, holding him up, and tried to get him to his feet.  His head clocked against the suit, and he blinked up at her.  "Oh, hey," he said muzzily, as if recognizing her on the street.  "How'd you get here?"

Unwilling to explain, Chell patted the ASHPD.

"'s a good gun."  He shook himself, and she helped him stand.  One glance at the splattered thing in the corner was enough, and he turned away.  "The rest of them?"

Chell patted the ASHPD again, and his eyes widened.  "'s a _very_ good gun."  The words seemed to bring him back to himself, and he staggered to the locker the last soldier had hidden behind.  A swift kick opened it, though it made him lurch back, and he gave a satisfied grunt.  "Here," he said, taking one of the huge rifles from the locker and slinging another over his shoulder.

She hesitated, then shook her head.  _Shotgun's enough.  ASHPD's enough, really._

"You sure?  Never a good idea to turn down a weapon."  He spoke too quickly, and his breathing was still shallow and pained.  Chell took a step closer, noting the persistent gray to his face, the way his hands carefully did not shake.  _You don't scream like that and walk away just fine after._

"No?  How about this, then: I'll take what I can, and you holler if you need anything.  Well, not holler, since it's you, but let me know somehow.  And you'll definitely want more ammo."

Chell took the shells he handed her, then, carefully, put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him to face her.  He started, meeting her eyes involuntarily, then paused.  For a moment neither of them moved, but the unspoken question -- _you all right?_ \-- lingered.  The lines around his lips tightened, and he nodded, putting one hand over hers for a second.  No, he wasn't, but here was someone who, like her, had gotten used to setting that aside for later.  "Thanks," he said quietly.

She nodded and stepped back, a little uncertain.  He went to the door, opened it a crack, then waved her on.

Either the soldiers she'd dropped into the reactor hadn't had time to call for help, or her earlier passage through Block D had sent the Combine into even greater disarray, because the halls seemed emptier than when she'd been climbing alongside them.  Or perhaps it was just that she now had someone with her. 

Getting out the same way she'd come in was no longer an option, not if those fires were still going, and Calhoun didn't seem to know his way any better than her.  So, down was out, she didn't think the front door was open (if it even existed) . . . that left up.  If she could get a view of the city, then maybe she could send a portal over.  She led Calhoun into the great gash she'd seen earlier. 

"Hold up," Calhoun said as they reached the chasm.  She paused, glancing back at him.  He motioned to the greenish things hanging from the walls, then drew closer and spoke in low tones.  "Gunships.  Look."

She followed his gesture to the hanging moth things.  They shared the same insectile quality of the other Combine airships she'd seen, but these seemed integrated with the machines even further -- huge rotors distended what she guessed was their abdomens, ensconced in their flesh, fins that seemed almost useless for flight bore a bristling of wire, and the compound eyes were dimmed.  As she watched, one of the skeletal figures hobbled up to a gunship and began cutting into it with a laser, sending up a fountain of sparks.

"The biggest advantage the Combine have over us -- in City 12 at least -- is air power," Calhoun said, almost whispering in her ear.  "If we can take down even a few of these, then it'll make this whole thing worth it."

Chell glanced at him, startled.  _I'm getting you out of here; that makes it worth it for me already_.  But that wasn't what he meant, she realized, watching his face as he looked from gunship to gunship.  Reluctantly, she looked back and noticed something she hadn't before: the thing currently welding the gunship's hide back together was human-shaped, but stripped down and hobbled, reduced to a scarecrow on stilts, its face drawn past starvation and its eyes replaced with a dull red glow. 

_Make it quick.  It's what we'd all ask_.  And humans weren't alone, she realized; the gunship itself was like the creatures that tended it: changed and hybridized and altered till it was no more what it had been than that thing beside it was human.

She shuddered and nodded.  Yes.  She'd make it quick.

"Right.  There's three here, three on the far side.  Get me over to either side, and I should be able to use one of Krasnaya's codes on at least one before they catch on.  If you can keep the stalkers off me, we'll take them down."

Each terminal was out at the very edge, next to the gunships, and between them the stalkers paced like things out of nightmare.  But the stalkers paid no attention to them, not even when Calhoun shot one in the back of the head and pushed its body away from the console.  "They don't have self-preservation instincts any more," he explained, shifting the rifle to his shoulder so he could work faster.  "But they'll notice as soon as I deactivate this, so look out."

_I'll do better than that_, she thought, and opened a portal on the far side of the gash, above the chasm.

"Ready?" She nodded.  "Here goes."  He hit a final sequence, and the screen flooded red.  A grating moan rose to a shriek, and Chell turned to see the gunship beside them shudder, its eyes turn opaque, and the whole thing drop from its moorings -- to fall six stories down and land with a crash that shook Block D.

Even Calhoun seemed surprised by that.  "Okay.  I guess we just lost the element of surprise."  He took aim at the stalkers that turned to face him.  "Next!"

She shook her head and ran after him.  Now alert to the danger, the stalkers hobbled toward them from either side as Calhoun reached the second terminal.  "Keep them off me . . . got it!"  The second gunship shuddered but didn't fall, and he swore.

Chell turned the stalkers' lasers back on them with portal after portal. Easy as misguiding a rocket launcher.  _Not that that was easy . . . maybe I'm just getting used to this_.  Not a fun thought.  Luckily, the Combine provided a handy distraction: the second gunship falling and a squad of soldiers pouring through a door between them and the next terminal.  She ducked behind the console with Calhoun, who returned fire and crouched again.  "I've rigged the next one to go," he shouted over the sound of gunfire.  "I'll cover you -- just get over there and hit the switch!"

With that he stepped out, firing and whooping.  Chell spared a second to shake her head _again_ and ran, skidding as glass above her shattered and fell. 

A soldier raised his rifle as she neared it, but a blast from behind her took it out.  She reached the console, fumbled at the glowing buttons, and, as the gunship shrieked, turned and opened a portal on the far side of the chasm, close to the other terminals.  Calhoun first -- she dropped him through without warning, his cry of surprise weirdly Dopplered by the shift -- then herself.  She pivoted as she fell through to avoid landing on top of Calhoun.  He got to his feet, a little wild-eyed.  "Think we can get the rest?"

Chell grinned at him and waved toward the consoles.  A gleam from above caught her attention, and she paused as he moved to the terminal, ignoring both stalkers and gunfire.  The little platform above wasn't part of a bridge, as she'd first thought, but now something flickered between it and the far wall.  It couldn't have been part of a bridge, though; just a little glass platform, suspended in midair, empty save for . . . for what looked very much like a rifle mounted on a low wall. 

She reached for the shotgun, but it was long since empty.  Even as she decided there was no time, a Combine soldier ran across the flickering bridge.  _Crap_.

She opened a portal high on the far wall, then ran for the chasm and leapt, hoping she'd find a usable spot at the bottom.  Calhoun shouted after her, but she ignored it, concentrating instead on the ground rushing up to meet her . . . there.

Portal, through, and across -- just as the soldier reached the gun.  She brought her legs up as she fell, clocking him in the face with her heel springs.  The impact shuddered up all the way into her knee, but it hurt him more, and she brought the crowbar down on his head again to make sure, and again until the mask shattered.

What lay beneath was no longer even remotely human.  She stared at the wreck, then dropped the crowbar and kicked the body out of her way.  The gun couldn't be that hard to work . . . and it wasn't, judging by how quickly she took down the fresh squad that had pinned Calhoun down at a terminal.  He looked up, startled, as the first shots hit, and even from here she could see his amazed grin.

From there it was just a matter of shooting until no one got in his way, and from here . . . from here she could almost see a way through to the far side of Block D.  No field in the way, at least from what she could tell. Time to hope.  She opened an orange portal at the far end of the energy bridge, then a blue one behind Calhoun, and whistled for him to look.  He did (first up at her, then through the portal; he was catching on) and nodded as he entered the last codes.  The sixth gunship wailed and dropped onto the shrapnel of its fellows, and he ran through, waving.  She held up one hand -- _wait_ \-- then opened a portal as far away as she could, out past the end of Block D.  He jumped back as the scene through the portal shifted, peered through, then stepped out onto what looked like a roof.  "Come on!" he yelled.

_Easy for you to say_.  She whacked the gun with her crowbar so it was out of alignment, then ran for it, across the flickering bridge. 

Straight into a fresh squad of soldiers.  And she didn't dare lose the portal, not when it'd taken so much to get that exit.  Instead she put her head down and just ran, flailing with the ASHPD at the first soldier (he actually flinched away, which gave her maybe an extra half-second) and bowling over the next. 

A white hand caught her shoulder, and another grabbed at her hair, dragging her to a halt.  She gasped, but no sound came out, and threw herself forward, clutching at the edges of the portal even though that edge didn't really exist --

Calhoun caught her hand, pulled her down, and fired past her.  The hands spasmed and let go, and she stumbled through, then, as the sound of a High Energy Pellet rose, opened a new blue portal on the closest wall, cutting off the old portal.  She got to her feet, swaying a little, and turned to look at Block D -- and the smoke rising up from it.  _Made it_, she thought.  _We made it._

"Wait up just a sec," Calhoun said as she moved to the edge of the roof.  She turned back to see him lean against the wall, close his eyes, and let out a long breath.  Then, to her surprise, he started to laugh.  "You know, I have no idea what the troop totals were for Block D, but God _damn_, Chell, they've gotta be a lot lower now."

_Hope so_, she thought, glancing behind them.  Those soldiers had seemed to come from everywhere; maybe the Combine just pulled them out of a replicator or something . . . she found herself debating the best way to locate and destroy the replicator, if that were true, and started to smile. 

"We did it.  God, we did it."  He grinned at her, then paused, his expression turning serious.  "Look, Chell, I, uh, I know we got off on the wrong foot, what with the threatening to shoot you in the head and all."  He cleared his throat, grimaced, and plunged on nonetheless.  "But what you did -- well, I don't know many people who'd do something like that.  Especially not for someone they just met."

He drew a deep breath, not looking at her.  "What I'm saying is, you ever need me, I've got your back."

Chell's face went hot, and she nodded awkwardly, then stuck out her hand.  He clasped it, smiling, then nodded down the street.  "Come on.  Let's get to HQ and see what the situation is."

Leapfrogging to HQ didn't take long with him directing her, and finally Chell got to see the entrance Tinasky and Lamb had brought her to: a little brown door in the side of the building, nothing obvious about it save for the lambda symbol chiseled into the lintel.  Chell tapped the matching symbol on her chest and managed a smile.  _Maybe this is where I ought to be, regardless of what Dr. Green thought._ 

"Right," Calhoun said as they reached the door.  "We'll get word from the dam, see whether they need a hand there -- doubt it, not with the way things looked.  Then I'll get an estimate of the forces in the city and start revising it down based on what we -- you -- just did.  Then --"

He stopped as the door opened.  A frightened Resistance member peered out, pointing a shotgun directly at Chell.


	4. I'm Not Even Angry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following her escape from the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, Chell enters a world ruled by the Combine, meets new allies and enemies, and learns that sometimes it's not enough just to escape. (AU in that it ignores the new patch, the new ending, and any word of Portal 2.)
> 
> Chapter 4: An unorthodox invitation, the monsters that follow you home, a distinct lack of cake, and the final test chamber.

Calhoun stepped between her and the shotgun.  "What the hell is this?  Put that thing away, Stevens!"

"Sorry, sir."  Krasnaya peered out from behind Stevens; she, too, was armed, and eyed Chell with the same scared resolve.  "But we've got reason to believe she's not who she says she is."

Chell blinked, staring at the little woman.  Calhoun sighed and put one gloved hand on the shotgun, pushing it out of the way.  "Okay, first off, unless Chell's developed a chatty streak while I've been gone, she hasn't said she's anyone.  Second, I'm more interested in what she's done, namely springing me from a Combine torture cell.  So you can put that away right _now_."

Stevens actually flinched at that and lowered the weapon before looking back at Krasnaya.  Chell hesitated, then tapped Calhoun's shoulder.  When he turned, she unslung her empty shotgun and handed it to him, then the crowbar.  He shook his head.  "Chell, you don't have to do this."

She nodded.  But better to be sure.  _Besides, I _don't_ know who I am.  Whatever's got them spooked could be the truth._  She hefted the ASHPD, sighed, and held it out to him.

His eyes widened, and he took it from her reverently.  "This better be good, Krasnaya."

"Sir."  Krasnaya let them in and brought them to the room where Chell had recovered before, the one with the screen that linked to White Forest.  "I managed to clean up the transmission," she said, settling down in front of the screens.  "This is what Dr. Kleiner received."

One of the smaller screens flickered and resolved into a grainy, green-tinted view of the Dr. Green's makeshift hallway lab.  Chell could just make out the mostly-assembled HEV suit off to one side.  _She must have recorded it while I was out getting the power cells_, she thought, and stepped back, uncertain what to do with her hands now that she wasn't holding a weapon or the ASHPD.  Stevens hadn't put away the shotgun, and Calhoun continued to glare at him.

Dr. Green settled down across from the screen, peering into it as if into a broken piece of equipment.  "Izzy, it's Colette," she said.  "Sorry to drop this on you; I know you're in the thick of it right now.  But I need some help.  I've been exploring the old Aperture Science facility in Cleveland -- or I was, till it blew up.  There's one survivor, though from everything I can gather she's more of an escapee than anything else."  Static fuzzed across the screen, and the audio shifted, speeding up and cutting out at random intervals.  "_fzzt_ \-- name is _krrrr_ \-- Chell."  Sparks shot across the screen, and the picture stuttered, finally returning to normal mid-sentence.  "-- a little traumatized, but I think she's all right.  I've cannibalized my old suit and what's left of Gina's, and I'm sending her to you.  After all --" she raised her cane and gave that little sad half-smile Chell remembered, "I can't really do much to keep her safe here."  Abruptly, she glanced off to the side, and the transmission froze, then jumped.

When she next appeared on screen, the distortion had worsened, the chair and table had been knocked over, and a long cut bled down over her eye, black in the greenish cast of the transmission.  "Izzy, they've found me.  I tried to send her through, but the teleporter took a direct hit and it -- she could be anywhere."  Dr. Green took a deep breath.  "Izzy, you have to find her.  Her and the device she carries --"  Static washed over the screen again, and Dr. Green's face contorted as if in frustration with it.  "Protect her," she said through the distortion.  "Keep her _fzzt_ safe _bzzz_ away from the Combine _krkrrk_ I'm sorry, Izzy.  I'm so sorry." 

A new explosion shook the screen, and Dr. Green turned to face it.  "Oh no," she said as the perspective shifted -- as if the woman, the screen, the splintered table were all rising into the air.  "No, you won't get what's in my head so easily."  She wrenched the top of her cane off, revealing a silver switch, and whispered something that might have been _Gina_ before pressing the switch.

The screen whited out.  Chell let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. _I should have stayed.  I should have found a way to get back to her._

Something brushed her shoulder, and she turned to see Calhoun's hand resting there, its pressure reduced to a whisper by the suit.  "She went out fighting," he said.  "It's not much, but at least there's that."

Yes.  There was that.  Chell ran her hands over her face, then nodded.  But at the back of her mind, something nagged at her, something she couldn't quite name.

"That isn't the problem, sir," Krasnaya said.  "The transmission was altered."

Calhoun glanced up.  "What?"

"I mean what Dr. Kleiner saw is not what Dr. Green sent.  He didn't notice the change -- his equipment's still scrambled from the attack -- but I found it cleaning up the transmission.  And, well, I think you need to see it."

Name.  That was it. How had Dr. Green known her name?  The first time Chell had actually heard it was when Kleiner said it, back hours and ages ago.  _Maybe I talk in my sleep.  Maybe it was sewn onto my clothes.  Maybe I've got a tattoo.  I should ask for a mirror . . ._

The same transmission started up on another screen: Dr. Green again, same as before.  Chell stared at her.  _How did you know?_

". . . more of an escapee than anything else," Dr. Green said, oblivious of the fate coming her way, and this time the static did not cut in.  "I don't know her name, and I'm not sure she does either.  She seems a little traumatized, but . . ."

Calhoun looked at her.  "But -- your name is Chell, isn't it?"

Chell nodded.  _It's practically the only thing I'm sure of._

The transmission went on, shifting to Dr. Green bleeding and besieged.  "She could be anywhere," she said again, and again the transmission remained undamaged.  "Izzy, you have to find her.  Her and the device she carries -- they're too dangerous to fall into Combine hands.  If you have to -- God, Izzy, I'm sorry -- if you have to kill her and destroy the device to keep them away from the Combine, then do it.  I'm so sorry."

Chell caught her breath.  A few hours ago, this betrayal -- if it was one -- wouldn't have surprised her.  Now, though, she only pitied Dr. Green, her options dwindling, despair eating at her until she only saw one way out.  The escape route to which she hadn't wanted to subject Chell.  _I'm sorry, Dr. Green.  I shouldn't have left you._

_But my name . . ._

"Okay," Calhoun finally said.  "That's . . . creepy as all hell, but I can't say it's enough to justify holding her at gunpoint.  And yeah, we kind of failed at keeping her away from the Combine, but I for one am glad we didn't."

"That isn't all there is," Krasnaya insisted.  "The lag time between transmission and reception was minimal, so whoever did this, they had one hell of a processor working on it.  I don't think even the Combine are that fast."

_No_, Chell thought.  _No, it can't be._

"So Chell couldn't have done it.  Fine."

"Nobody could.  Maybe a major network, all working in concert, but it'd have to be intelligently directed."

_It can't be her, I sent every last piece of her to join the companion cube into the incinerator, I _killed her --

"And there was a second file embedded in the transmission.  A set of coordinates, and this."  Krasnaya ran her hands over the controls, and the central screen lit up with thousands of amber characters.

Arranged in a single staring eye.

_No._

"**Subject**.  **Name**," said a detached, mechanical, _familiar_ voice.  "**Chell**."

Chell scrambled back, knocking over the bench and flattening herself against the wall.

The voice -- _her_ voice -- went on, unconcerned.  "**Come Home.  Come Home.  Come Home.**"

The dull concrete walls seemed to shiver, and she only saw white, the sterile white of the Enrichment Center.  She scrabbled for the ASHPD, the crowbar, anything, her fingers blindly scraping the floor.

"**Subject.  Name.  Chell.  Come Home.**" 

"Shut that thing off!  Stevens, put down your weapon!  That is an order!"  Calhoun crouched next to her.  "Chell, it's okay, it's okay."

She shook her head, refusing to look at him.  _It's not okay, it's not okay at all, I thought I'd gotten out, I thought I killed her -- was that all part of the test?  Did she just let me go?  Does this mean I still have a chance at cake?_  She let out a humorless whisper of a laugh.

Calhoun looked back at Krasnaya.  "You said coordinates.  Where?"

"Up north somewhere.  I can pinpoint it --"

"Near where Gordon and Alyx were headed?"

There was a long pause.  "I'm afraid so," Krasnaya said finally.  "And while Dr. Green encrypted her transmission, the altered one was sent in the clear.  If I can discover this --"

"Then so can the Combine.  Hell.  That tears it."  He ran a hand through his graying hair, then took Chell's fumbling hands in his.  "Chell, I need your help."

She looked up at him, still unable to breathe, and the phantom of the Enrichment Center faded around him. 

He went on, speaking slowly, like someone trying not to spook a wild animal.  "If those coordinates are what I think, they lead to the same kind of portal technology you've been carrying around.  More, even."

Chell took a deep breath and nodded, still shaking.  Yes.  She didn't know the extent of Aperture Science's research, but GLaDOS would have it, whatever it was.

"Well, Dr. Green was right about one thing.  The Combine can't have that."  He managed a tight smile.  "Though I'd say her solution is off the table for good now."

The roaring in her ears started to lessen.  Chell tried a smile in return.

"See, I've got friends up there right now.  Gordon, he's a buddy of mine from way back.  And Alyx, hell, I watched her grow up.  She's damn near family.  And they're trying to keep this same technology out of the Combine's hands."  He glanced back at the screens.  "If they're risking their lives to do that, then I can't take the chance that there's a backup somewhere in reach of the Combine.  So I figure -- I figure I've got to go to those coordinates and destroy it."

"Sir!" Stevens yelped, and Krasnaya made an inarticulate noise.

Calhoun ignored them.  "Will you come with me?"

Chell didn't move.

"Or -- hell, at least tell me what I'm walking into."

A deathtrap.  _At least, if I'm not there, it will be.  She doesn't care about you.  Me, she might wait to spring the trap._  Chell got to her feet, rocking a little on the heel springs.

Krasnaya got out of her way as she approached the screen.  The golden eye, she saw, was ASCII art: the words COME HOME COME HOME COME HOME repeated to make up the pattern.  Instead of returning its empty glance, though, she gazed at the two white screens.

Dr. Green had known the dangers.  Dr. Green had encrypted her message.  And GLaDOS hadn't known, or, more likely hadn't cared.  Because of that, Dr. Green's sacrifice had been for nothing.

_I thought I'd gotten away from you.  But it's not enough just to escape, is it?_

She reached across Krasnaya and shut off the screens, then turned to Calhoun and nodded.  He smiled and held out the ASHPD.

What followed was mostly a lot of people shouting at Calhoun and him refusing to listen.  Chell walked through it all numbly, accepting the ammunition one Resistance member handed her and the medkits from another, closing her eyes and trying to remind herself of where she was, where she was not, and that she wasn't alone this time.  It didn't help, not even when Calhoun had to practically take her by the shoulders and steer her into a basement room where two women worked on a teleporter to match Dr. Green's, though this one looked simultaneously sleeker and more half-assed.  _Better equipment_, she guessed absently, _but less expertise._

The small, black-haired woman in charge was having none of Calhoun's explanations.  "Setting aside the whole issue of where you're needed --"

"They'll be fine without me, Yakamoto.  Especially now that the gunships are down."

"So you say.  But even so, how are you getting back?  And for that matter, I don't like sending you in the first place -- yes, it's working, but really the only safe place to send anyone is White Forest --"

"Where your _boyfriend_ is," whispered the younger woman at the console.  Yakamoto glared at her.

"What -- No, I don't want to know."

"_Someone_ took Dr. Kleiner at his word, let's just say that," the younger woman snickered.  "'Future of the species' and all.  And apparently we need more balding scientist babies."

"Shut it!"  Yakamoto smoothed down her hair.  "That's none of your business.  Look, the White Forest relay is the only place I can be sure of, and as for these unknown coordinates -- I mean, who's to say that you won't end up teleported into a wall?"

Chell shook her head.  No, GLaDOS wouldn't do that.  At least not right away.  It'd be too easy, and she'd never get a chance to watch Chell squirm.

Calhoun watched her response.  "We won't," he said.  "As for getting back, well, let me handle that.  I'll keep a comm link open if necessary."

"Christ, you're crazier than Freeman -- fine.  Fine, I'll send you.  Nice knowing you."  She hit a switch, and the teleport platform descended.  "You're sure it's that important?"

"You want to risk it?  Let me know; I'll tell the Combine they're welcome to take a crack at it."  He opened a locker at the far side of the room and took a second rifle from it, then several boxes of ammunition.

Yakamoto let out a long sigh, then turned to Chell.  "I hope you know what you're doing."

_I hope so too_.  But she couldn't say that to the Resistance, not when they'd done so much, not when Tinasky and Lamb and all the rest had looked at her with such hope.  She nodded curtly to Yakamoto and walked into the teleport platform with a confidence she did not feel.

Calhoun followed a second later.  "It's a kick in the teeth, huh?"  he murmured.  "You bust your ass trying to get out of the crazy place, and once you get out you find the monsters followed you home."

Chell glanced at him as the platform lifted under them.  Crazy place was right, but monsters? Calhoun, though, wasn't looking at her; his gaze was far away, and the line of his mouth was hard and set.  _Someday_, Chell thought, _I really ought to find out the whole story about Black Mesa_. 

Feeling her gaze on him, Calhoun gave her a half-smile, then peered down at Yakamoto.  "Hey, you tested this thing, right?"

"You're worrying about that _now_?"  Yakamoto shook her head.  "Yes, of course we tested it.  Twice."

"Okay.  No, hang on.  Who'd you get to do that?"

"We borrowed Krasnaya's cat."

"_What_?"

The hum of the transporter rose to a deafening whine, and light carried them away.

* * *

To Chell's muted relief, this time there were no disorienting flashes of other places: just green light, a crackle, and the sudden inescapable feeling of _elsewhere_.  Elsewhere, though, was a lot brighter than the room they'd left, and she winced away, covering her eyes.  Beside her, Calhoun cursed and did the same.  "...goddamn cat," he muttered.  "Always with the cat."  He shuddered theatrically as her vision cleared, then looked around.  "Where the hell are we?"

_Wherever she wanted us . . . ah._  The dilated-iris logo of Aperture Science gleamed on the far wall, cut into granite tile, and brilliant white light streamed over their shoulders.  They stood in a high, cold room: a lobby, Chell recognized, scanning the ceiling for any sign of turrets.  (None, or none visible, anyway.)  A semicircular receptionist's desk stood a little ways back, ineffectually guarding the hallway beyond.  Above it, the words _Aperture Science Contingency Site And Storage Facility_ had once been meant to light up, but now a faint blue glow only limned the words _Science and Storage_.  A few squashy chairs, as untouched as if they'd come straight from the factory, stood beside a low table and a pair of incongruously green plastic plants. 

She turned, aware of the Aperture logo watching over her, to see the source of the blinding light: the windows stretched up to the ceiling, and through them the hard white Arctic sky nearly glowed.  A few listless flakes fell on weirdly even lumps in the courtyard . . . picnic tables, she realized.

_Picnic tables.  What's the point of having picnic tables in the Arctic -- or a courtyard, for that matter?  What, the polar bears need somewhere to sit on their lunch breaks?  But no, old man Johnson wants every Aperture facility to have a "welcoming employee rest area" and so picnic tables it is . . ._

She shook her head as if stung.  That hadn't felt like her own thought.  That had been more like . . . like memory, something she'd lost . . . she shivered, even though the thick glass kept the cold at bay.  _Do I remember this place?  Should I?_

"Ha," Calhoun said behind her, and she turned to see him behind the desk.  "I think maybe this place never was finished," he said, pointing to the empty desk, the place where a computer should have been.

Chell shook her head, slowly.  No, it had been . . . or at least contracted to be . . .  She started to raise a hand, warn him away, but he froze, listening, and a second later she heard it too: footsteps, heavy and uneven.   He moved to one side of the door, rifle at the ready, and she crouched behind the desk.

The Combine soldier who staggered into the lobby didn't see either of them, so intent was he on reaching the doors.  It wasn't until Calhoun shot him (a startled, wheezing flatline resulted, almost pitiful if it had been something else) that they noticed the trail of blood behind him.  Calhoun knelt by the body.  "Looks like Krasnaya was right about the Combine deciphering that transmission," he murmured.  "But this guy was alone, and hurt."  He looked up at her.  "You think he ran into the -- the person that called you here?"

"Person" was stretching it, but Chell nodded.  Though how a well-armed Combine soldier could have been taken down by the turrets she didn't know. 

_We're on her turf now.  So are they.  Her rules._  She stood, gazing down the hall, and the red glow of a camera eye looked back at her.  It must have been watching for some time already, she realized. She nodded to it -- to her -- and fired a portal at the wall, knocking the camera away.

Calhoun jumped up at the clatter, but paused.  "So we've been spotted," he said.  "Well, never stopped me before."

They made their way down the hall, Chell stopping at every sound, straining her ears for the sound of machinery, turrets, voices.  Turned out Calhoun heard the first one, pausing at the door of an office.  "You hear that?  Doesn't sound like Combine -- sounds like someone's here."

_No_, she thought, but too late; he'd already opened the door, and his eyes widened.  _"I see you,_" whispered a treble voice, and Chell didn't wait for the red light before knocking him aside, out of the way.  Bullets pocked the far side of the hall, and the red beam of a laser sight lanced out, seeking them.  _"Where'd you go_?"

Calhoun caught his breath, putting one hand on her shoulder as if to either push her away or pull her out of the turret's range.  "They _talk_?"

She nodded, getting up and flattening herself against the wall.  Portal above, then in the closest wall, and she dropped through, kicking over the turret.  "_Welcome home_," it chirped as it fell.

She shuddered, then looked up to see Calhoun in the doorway.  "You recognize these things?"

_More than I wish I did._  She nodded, but the disorienting feeling that there should have been something else behind this door . . . _God forbid . . . every fifty feet . . ._ no.  No, the memory wasn't clear, and the way it felt in her head was almost like a voice, something from outside. 

How could she be sure any of her memories were really hers?  That they were real in the first place?  So much of what GLaDOS had said had skirted truth, had used truth as a sugar coating for the poison inside . . . _There's nothing I can rely on_, she thought, and her heart thumped like a bird wanting out of its cage.  _Not my memories, not this place, not her . . ._

Calhoun nudged the turret with his foot, making a face, then headed back down the hall.  Chell followed, trying to escape the blank in her mind.  "Okay.  That's . . . disturbing," he said.  But look, something like that -- they couldn't have taken down that many Combine.  And that's not just wounded pride; there had to have been something else --"

He stopped, and Chell did too.  The way ahead was barred, not just by the glass doors but by something beyond it.  As they watched, a single Combine soldier staggered up, flailed against the glass, and sagged.  The air beyond had a greenish, greasy quality Chell knew far too well. 

Calhoun moved to the door, but she shook her head.  _Not unless you want a dose of neurotoxin_.  She backed away, uneasily aware that GLaDOS had limited patience.  And sanity, for that matter. 

She closed her eyes, trying to think, then pointed to her left.  _Cubes,_ she thought; n_ot storage cubes but the other kind.  That's this way.  Maybe there's a way around . . . maybe I can figure out where we're going.  If I'm not imagining things._

Turned out she was right, about the cubes at least: the hall led to a wide open space, criscrossed by low dividing walls and defunct computers, something that ought to have been familiar from the derelict office park in Cleveland at least . . . except for the lattice of red lights, one to a cube.  A high-pitched chorus started up, and she ducked behind the nearest filing cabinet.  Calhoun let out a low whistle and reloaded his rifle. 

Through the cubes -- over in some cases, and one or two of the little robots had apparently developed gyroscopes, because just knocking them over didn't suffice -- and on, deeper into the facility.  The impression that she knew this place would not fade, not through the offices filled with turrets, not down the hall past the Employee of the Month photos (all of which were blank, save for the two on the end, which had been replaced with images of the Companion Cube), or through the endless, empty, maddeningly familiar rooms. 

It wasn't quite like having a map in her head, nothing so reliable, but more of a sense that _here_ was where something ought to be and was not, _here_ was where the support beams had been planted, _here_ was the spot that got redesigned five times . . . The disconnect made her jumpy, and Calhoun had started to catch on, sharing her unease.  _I shouldn't be like this_, she thought.  _I'm the one who's on familiar ground, I should be guiding him._

The sound of gunfire from ahead made him pause, but Chell took a step further, toward the plate-glass window at the far end of the hall.  It should overlook something, she thought, a cafeteria maybe?  Another courtyard?

None, as it turned out: the room below was a test chamber, or had been repurposed into one, buttons and cubes and all.  And, at the moment, it held about eight Combine soldiers, scattering out from an Emancipation Grill and firing behind them.  One of them had almost reached the far door when the central platform unfolded to reveal a single glaring eye, its rocket launcher uncurling like a scorpion's tail. 

"Holy crap," Calhoun said as the first rocket took out three soldiers and the rest futilely tried to find cover.  "I'd almost feel sorry for them, if we weren't in the same boat."

Chell nodded, gazing across to high on the far wall, where a shallow ledge and a second window looked out on the test chamber.  And below it, black against the tile: THIS WAY and the little running figure.  Only where the signposts back at the Enrichment Center had been drawn in messy, blotted red, this was too precise . . . and too permanent, as if it'd been etched with a laser.

"Chell --"

_Fine_, she thought, and looked back down at the rocket launcher, which had finally noticed her presence.  _You want me to go that way, I will.  At least till I find out where you are_.

"Chell, get _down!_"

Calhoun grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her away from the window just as the rocket launcher locked on.  The two of them fell back, out of the resulting cloud of dust and glass.  He grunted as she fell next to him, one hand going up as if to steady her, then stared at the empty window.  "There's gotta be a better way to make an exit."

_Not around here, there's not_.  She got to her feet, staying out of range, and tried to remember the angle of the window.  If it was right, she could cast a portal back this way . . . She helped him up, then pointed to him, to the floor, hoping her meaning was clear.

It was.  "Stay here?  Yeah, I gotcha.  Only don't be gone too long, okay?"  He gave her a not-quite-steady smile.  "This place is creeping me out."

She managed a smile, thumped him on the arm, then ran out the window and down, firing portals as she went.  Down, and across, and up onto the ledge . . . and hold still just long enough for the rocket to fire . . . back down, and keep running, ignore the dead bodies for now . . . this was familiar, and not in the way that was giving her the shivers.  This was something she knew how to do, and could do well, could even do when, say, one of the soldiers turned out to be not quite dead.  A blast from above took him down before he could get a round off, and she paused long enough to see Calhoun duck back under cover before the rocket launcher could spot him too.  Portal up into the hallway, away from the launcher . . .

Yes.  She could do this.  And even if this hallway had the same uncanny echo, even if she had the distinct sense that she knew where she ought to be headed (_executive offices, and please tell me we got the right contractors in for Mr. Johnson's office because if we don't have the right size espresso-machine-honey-purifier combo with bonus mercury dispenser he won't just dock our pay this time_), her hands were a little more steady now. 

She turned back, ducking away from the laser sight, and fired a portal into the first hallway -- just in time to hear a cheery _Hellooo_ and the rattle of gunfire.  Calhoun jumped through, swearing, and she closed the portal behind him.  "They came out of the ceiling!" he said, wincing at the graze along his arm.  "Just dropped straight down -- I didn't even see --"  He started and ducked, looking up as if expecting another turret.  "This place," he muttered.  "This goddamn _place_."

_Aperture Science Overhead Technology Deployment System_, the memory she didn't quite trust whispered in the back of her mind.  She'd always wondered how those damn turrets got where they did . . .

But this, this was where GLaDOS had wanted her to be, she thought as she led Calhoun down the hall.  A place she knew.  A place she could be monitored.  A place that was far too familiar.

It wasn't the Relaxation Vault.  It was too small, for one thing, and the glass walls didn't reach up to the ceiling, and there was no glassed-in section from which scientists could theoretically watch her progress.  But it was a reasonable facsimile: a little room of glass with one white wall, a toilet and bed and even the same little radio playing the same infernally catchy tune.  There was even the glow of an orange portal already open within.

And above it, waving gently in the breath of the central heating, hung a banner of perforated paper.  Dot-matrix mosaic spelled out WELCOME HOME [SUBJECT NAME HERE].  A single, smearily-printed page had been tacked onto the end: AND GUEST.

The guest in question paused at the door, staring.  "This . . . this is what you got out of before, isn't it?  This is why Dr. Green said you'd escaped."

Chell nodded, circling the vault.

"_Jesus_, Chell."

She didn't know what to say to that, and turned away, unwilling to look at him.  As she'd suspected, the orange portal inside didn't lead anywhere.  Experimentally, she opened a blue portal on the closest wall, and yes, it led straight into the vault.  Calhoun peered inside, but she stopped him with an outflung arm.  Step inside, and the blue portal would vanish, leaving her trapped . . . and out would come the neurotoxin.  Or maybe even just tranquilizers -- yes, that matched what she'd seen so far.  GLaDOS would be quite happy to have Chell alive, so long as she was under her control.  Safe and sleeping, and nobody would have to try to kill anybody.

But move the orange portal . . . She glanced around the room again, marking the changes from the office it had once been.  No cameras, but she'd bet her life that GLaDOS had the room monitored somehow.  Move the orange portal, explicitly reject her offer, and down came the turrets, or the rocket launcher, or however else she cared to show her deep and abiding disappointment with Chell. 

On a hunch, she returned to the door they'd come through and listened.  Yes, there at the edge of hearing: the whirr of the Overhead Technology Deployment System and a faint whisper of _Sentry Mode Activated._  Leaving that way was not an option.

Calhoun nudged her.  "Looks like we're not the first ones here, he said, pointing within.  She followed his gesture to see a white china plate, lying just out of sight from a casual glance.  A scattering of crumbs surrounded a single extinguished candle.

Chell gritted her teeth.  _Now she's just laughing at me_.

She backed up, trying to see a way out.  The original Relaxation Vault had been inviolate, a solo chamber accessible only by portals, but this room . . . this hadn't originally been intended as a prison, it had been converted to one, and there might be something. 

There: a vent, the same one that let air through to stir the banner, inaccessible to a lone woman hampered by heel springs.  She nudged Calhoun and pointed.  "What, you don't want to hang around?" he murmured, but bent to give her a boost.  With his help, she got up on top of the vault itself, and he climbed up after.  She pried the grate loose with her crowbar, started to drop it, then thought better of it and carefully placed it to one side. 

The vent led up and away from the vault, and if GLaDOS had yet noticed her departure, at least she hadn't broken out the neurotoxin.  No turrets here, either . . . _of course not, the Aperture Science Overhead Technology Deployment System only extended to seventy-eight percent of the corridors of the facility . . ._

She shook her head.  How did she remember that?  And why?  Nothing about this building even looked right, but the feeling of it was something else, the ingrained familiarity . . .

Maybe it wasn't that she knew the place.  Maybe it was just that the building was Aperture Science, the only home she had.

She hissed at the thought.  No.  No, that would never be the reason.

"Keep an eye out," Calhoun murmured behind her.  "I've never been in one of these that didn't have at least one head-humper wandering around in it."

That was all she needed: a charred turkey squealing at her.  She shook her head and slid further down the vent, toward the dim light at the end.

A low grind started up around them, rattling the vent: the Overhead Technology Deployment System ratcheting up to deploy.  _She's noticed we left.  And she doesn't like the rejected offer._  Chell quickened her pace and, pausing only long enough to listen for turrets, scrambled out of the vent.

This space, too, was familiar, though not in the same way: a space between the other spaces, a cluster of unconnected computers and file cabinets, papers scattered around, and the faint sweet smell of long-forgotten rot.  It wasn't a den, like the little hidey-holes she'd found in the Enrichment Center, but it could have been the first stages of one.  She jumped to the ground, scanning first for any sign of turrets, any cameras, and found none.  Only this little desk, the cabinet, the computers, tucked away safe.

One monitor, though, blinked amber at her, and she approached, ASHPD held before her.  A command line flashed twice, then disappeared, leaving only a line of glowing text.

_IF YOU COME ALONE I MIGHT NOT KILL HIM_

Chell caught her breath.  Behind her, Calhoun slid out of the vent, a little pinker around the ears than his exertions warranted.  "You know, I'd be just fine if I never had to climb in another vent again," he began, then paused, looking around.  "Huh.  Someone hiding from those little robots, you think?"

She glanced at him, then back at the monitor.  It was now dark, and gave every indication of having always been so. 

Calhoun, though, didn't notice, instead picking up some of the pages from the top of the filing cabinet.  "Ha.  Looks like we lucked out."  He unfolded one and laid it out on the cabinet.  "Look here, they left a map.  And a note . . . 'due to concerns over our digital disk storage facility, this is being kept in analog form . . . I hope to add to this in time.'  Think whoever left this might have stashed more?"

_No_, she thought, and the rush of sorrow that overcame her startled her.  _No, I don't think he had the chance to._  She reached for the monitor, her fingers hovering over it, then drew her hand back. 

"Says here that there's a main backup storage site here . . . I think that means left up at the juncture here . . . and then a, what the hell, a de-icing system and enrichment center remote site?"

Chell came to look over his shoulder.  She pointed first to the backup storage -- the main core of the building, not far away -- and then, trying not to shake, the de-icing remote site.  _That's her.  But first we get rid of the Combine._

"You sure?"  He folded up the map, then the other scattered pages, and tucked them away.  "All right, then.  Lead on."

Even with the map, there wasn't a clear way through, and at this point the Deployment System had really cranked up, dropping turrets left and right.  Chell finally gave up entirely and ported them into the ceiling, and they crouched along the steel beams as they made their way down into the central backup site.  From the sounds of gunfire and the occasional startled flatline, the Combine search team had made it this far as well, though she wouldn't vouch for their numbers. 

The main backup chamber was set almost directly into the ice, walls giving way to a kind of scaffolding (_and a total bitch to design_, the unquiet memory muttered in the back of her head, and that at least _had_ sounded like her thought even if she didn't know the context) that didn't hold back the ice so much as delineated a space within it.  Stepping into the high chamber, even up here in the ceiling, was like being dropped into a freezer.  And that hadn't been cold enough, she thought, gazing down at the wide cylinder that formed the backup storage containment.  It glowed softly, but brighter was the coolant system in the center, a concentrated white glow like two thousand winter mornings. 

Their breath clouded in the air as Calhoun nudged her.  She followed his gesture to see a small cluster of Combine soldiers, including one in white, next to the storage banks.  "Remote transmitter," he whispered in her ear, the warmth of his breath startling in this cold.  "They know they're not getting out of here, so they're just going to link into it."

For a moment Chell entertained the idea of letting whatever computer system the Combine had wrestle with GLaDOS, but there were limits.  Besides, either way she and Calhoun would lose. 

The beams shivered beneath them, and she looked up to see the Overhead Technology Deployment System starting up, carrying a line of turrets toward them.  Calhoun glanced up, tapping his rifle.  "Can I borrow the crowbar?  I've got an idea."

She handed it to him, and he smiled as he tested its weight.  "Usually I'm the one giving these things away . . . if I stop the transmitter, can you take out the memory backup?  That way even if they get a link started, it won't be any good."

Chell gazed down through the beams.  The white soldier circled the banks, its gun slack . . . but she was pretty sure it had one of those glowing pods, the same kind Calhoun had used to clear out the top of the comm tower.  _I don't think I was much of a computer person -- I sure as hell am not now -- but I should be able to do some explosive reprogramming_.  She nodded, opening a portal directly on top of the memory array. 

"Right.  Give me thirty seconds, and I'll get them to scatter." 

Thirty seconds might be pushing it, judging by how busy they were, but Calhoun didn't stop to argue as he ran along the beam toward the Overhead Useful Deployment System.  Chell glanced after him -- the turrets hadn't been set down yet, they were still pointed elsewhere -- and crouched on the beam above where the white soldier stood with two more foot soldiers. 

Nineteen, twenty . . . As she watched, Calhoun slung his rifle so that it was out of his way,  choked up on the crowbar with both hands, and swung it at the Deployment System like a baseball player hitting a grounder.  The impact knocked the little robot out of the Deployment System's grip and sent it hurtling to the floor below. 

Halfway down, it woke up, chirping a happy greeting as it hit the ground in the midst of the Combine soldiers.  The soldiers leaped away, one emitting what probably would have been a very girly scream without the masking distortion, and though few were hit they took cover, leaving the transmitter for now.  Calhoun flashed her a grin and hit another turret.

Below her, the white soldier had jumped at the sound of the turret, then said something to the two soldiers with him.  Chell took a flying leap off the beam, landing just a little short of where she'd intended and not hitting any of the three.  _Oh well_, she thought, and shot the closest soldier.

The second one seemed to panic, first trying to hit her, then firing wildly.  She shot him as well, then turned to the last, who'd moved back against the memory array. 

But this time, the shotgun only clicked.  Chell froze, pulling the trigger again: nothing.  The white soldier chuckled, raising his rifle.  _Time to see if I'm right about that glowing pod_, she thought, and bull-rushed him, opening a fresh portal under their feet as they collided.

Down they went, and out onto the top of the array, lurching as gravity shifted around them.  She dragged him to the side and wrestled one arm around the gun, pulling it first toward herself and then past, so that it pointed behind her.  The single red eye looked almost startled as she came face to face with it, and she gave it her best imitation-of-Calhoun grin before pulling the trigger.

The High Energy Pellet lookalike rocketed into the cooling system, and sparks flew up as it bounced back and forth from memory array to coolant and back. For just a second, a pulse of heat ran all the way up through her heel springs: the memory backup starting to overheat. _That'll take care of it_, she thought, and shoved the white soldier off the array.

Unfortunately, he was close enough to grab her as well.  The shotgun fell to the ice as she toppled, and the ASHPD's weight tipped her further, over and onto her back.  Stars sparked across her vision as the back of her head struck the ice, and for a second she couldn't do more than breathe, staring up at the lattice of beams and the -- empty? -- Deployment System. 

A snarl very like a grenade-wielding zombie brought her back to reality -- too late, though, as the white soldier landed on her.  The butt of his rifle struck her across the face, and she tasted blood, scrambling for the ASHPD, anything.  The white soldier pinned her arms under its knees, then leaned back, the muzzle of its rifle pressed against her forehead --

\-- and fell to the side, blood spraying from the white mask.  Chell stared for only a second, then shoved the body off her and grabbed for the ASHPD.  Above, Calhoun lowered the rifle, his expression unreadable at this distance, then ran along the beam to the service ladder on the far wall. 

By the time he reached the ground, she'd dropped the last few Combine soldiers (not that there were many; the turrets had done their job) from floor to ceiling, and the suit had started to mutter in her ear about administering painkillers. She spat -- blood, but no teeth -- and ported the transmitter across the room as well, even though the memory array was already smoking and sizzling.  "Chell, are you --" he started, then stopped as he saw her face.  His jaw worked a moment, then he nodded.  "All right.  Okay.  Let's get moving before this place melts into the ground."

_That's less of a hyperbole than you think_, Chell thought, listening to the memories of this place, the ice, the structure . . . there had been architectural failsafes against such an occurrence, but she wouldn't bet on any of them lasting till whatever present day this was.  She scooped up her shotgun and nodded to the entrance the Combine had come through.

It wasn't till they reached the hall that Chell realized how futile this last gesture was.  She glanced back at the Combine soldiers, wondering if it was worth going back to scavenge more shells.

"Out of ammo?"

She nodded, still scanning the empty room and the steam starting to cloud it from the disintegrating memory array.  It'd be just like GLaDOS to drop a rocket launcher on them once they'd cleared out the Combine.

"Yeah, I'm running low, too.  I'd say check these guys, but it looks like they were almost out by the time they got here."  He paused, then reached into his vest.  "Here," he said, holding out a gun in a rolled-up shoulder holster: an old-style revolver, oversized and heavy.  "My old service revolver," he said, not looking at her.  "It's hardly top of the line, but I've kept it in good condition.  I brought it as a good-luck charm, but, well . . ."  He hesitated.  "Anyway, it saw me safe out of Black Mesa."

Chell glanced at her shotgun, then regretfully set it down and took the revolver.  The holster didn't sit quite right over the HEV suit, and she had to check several times to make sure it was in place, but it was something.

"Suits you," Calhoun said, sounding a little more composed now.  "Six shots.  Not much, but it's got better range than a crowbar.  Speaking of which," he added, and handed back the crowbar. 

_Still more than what I had last time_, Chell thought, smiled at him and nodded down the hall.

No turrets here, but the cameras were protected by portal-proof glass, and each swiveled to follow them.  Whatever relief she'd felt after destroying the memory array drained away, and at every juncture she expected to hear a new voice asking _are you still there_?

Calhoun, though, seemed oblivious, or maybe was just trying to keep her spirits up.  "I've been thinking," he said as they rounded another corner.  "The Combine might have just sent drop ships, but somehow I think they'd have wanted to bring some of this back.  So there's a possibility they left their transport nearby.  Which means we might have a shot at getting home."

_Maybe.  Maybe.  If she lets us go_. Chell paused, replaying the words.  No. GLaDOS didn't 'let' you do anything.  And she wouldn't hope for mercy from that thing.

"If the map's right, ,there ought to be a helipad not far from the elevator.  So we'll take that up -- no, what am I saying.  Of course it'll be busted.  But if you find a way to go up top and let  me up, I'll get some recon."

They reached a walkway over what had probably once been offices (_recreation center_, the part of her memory that she didn't quite believe whispered) and was now a very scenic pit.  "There," Calhoun said, pointing out a platform at the far end.  "You get the elevator running, I'll take a look, and then --"  He cocked an eyebrow at her.  "And then we'll go kick this thing's ass together."

A couple of portals and a long jump brought her to the lift controls.  The blue shimmer of an emancipation grill separated her from them, and automatically Chell checked above for turrets, moving parts, Technology Deployment, anything.  Nothing, yet.  Just the lift controls set into the wall beyond a set of open glass doors, and beyond that, a little unassuming door, without even an electronic lock.

And no sound of gunfire from below.  That was something.

One hand on the crowbar, she edged through the field, past the open doors, and switched the elevator on.  Below, she heard Calhoun call something approving, the words lost but the tone clear. She shook her head, smiling despite herself, then paused.  One of Aperture Science's ubiquitous red buttons stood just to the left of the door: probably the controls for it.  Although why it was so prominent, as if this were a test chamber . . .

Her gaze traveled up, above the doors.  There: set in a little niche, a camera's single red eye regarded her.  _It _is_ a test chamber_, she thought.  _But the test . . ._

_If you come alone I might not kill him._

Chell wheeled, staring wildly about the room. Yes, there was the small, inoffensive door . . . but to either side of it, the wall glittered with lenses, lenses that now resembled temporarily deactivated eyes.  Turrets, lots of them, all ready to be switched on.  It might lack the telltale light above, but she knew they were there.

Maybe it wouldn't even be turrets.  Maybe it'd be something GLaDOS had cooked up just for this occasion.  She could see it all: he'd get as far as the door, maybe half a step further, and the panels would open -- not slowly, now GLaDOS wouldn't be bothering with drama now -- before he even had time to draw breath.  She could see it all so _clearly_, right down to the startled look on his face as he died, almost as if . . . as if it had all happened this way before.

Down the hall, the elevator doors opened.  "Jackpot," Calhoun called, and she jumped at the sound of his voice.  "There's a Combine helicopter still intact, and it looks like whoever they left to guard it is, well, not a problem any more.  I should be able to fly us out of here."

Chell raised her eyes to meet the single camera lens.  _Damn you to android hell_, she thought, and slapped her open hand against the button.

The doors slid shut just as Calhoun reached them.  He stopped, staring at the glass, then tapped on it.  "Chell, what are you doing?"

She shook her head and pointed back down the hall, to the elevator.  _Go back.  Get that helicopter, and get out of here._

"Open this --" Dawning realization struck him.  "Oh no. This is her, isn't it?," he said softly.  "This is the person that called you here.  The one you escaped from."

She nodded, blinking fast, and pointed again down the hall.

"Hell with that!  Let me help you!"  He struck the glass so hard it rattled.  "Goddammit, Chell!"

She caught her breath and shook her head again.  _No.  You come with me, and it's the incinerator for you.  Or worse._

Behind her, a slow hiss heralded the last door opening, and Calhoun's eyes widened.  "No.  Please.  I'm not -- Chell, I'm not leaving you!"  He slammed both hands flat against the glass.  "Chell.  Chell, please."

_No_.  She pointed again, then turned her back before she could change her mind.  The lenses stayed dormant, the door stayed open, and not until she stepped through did it slide closed, muffling Calhoun's last desperate cry.  Chell closed her eyes and drew a shuddering breath, then opened them as a familiar voice spoke.

**Hello.**


	5. The People Who Are Still Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following her escape from the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, Chell enters a world ruled by the Combine, meets new allies and enemies, and learns that sometimes it's not enough just to escape. (AU in that it ignores the new patch, the new ending, and any word of Portal 2.)
> 
> Chapter 5: An unfavorable comparison to a cube, all one needs to know, the memory of coffee, and Chell finds her voice.

There were words that Chell knew without knowing why, words that only became clear when something brushed across her memory or when her experience thus far failed to provide a suitable substitute.  Words like _espresso_, or _receptionist_, or _overhead technology deployment system_ \-- they hovered in the back of her mind, ready for some trigger to draw them forth.

The word that rose now, stripped of any context it had once possessed, was _orrery_.  GLaDOS hadn't been built to the same pattern here, not with less space and more restrictions and the cold to deal with, and just possibly the engineers had started to have some inkling of what they were constructing.  Instead of dangling from the ceiling, here she stood like an idol on a dais, and the orbs that were her body -- or that Chell had assumed were -- spun in complicated orbits around a central spindle of light like the Combine's reactors, followed by dozens of smaller orbs.  Each eye turned to regard her as it spun, like a model of the planets turning to look at a comet.

But the voice, the voice was the same.

**Well.  I don't suppose you have an excuse for being out so late?  Nor for the mess you've made of this place?  I could say I expected better of you, but we both know that would be a lie.**

Chell took a step forward, scanning the room.  Only one screen hung on the wall here, flashing the same frenetic images that she suspected mirrored GLaDOS' thought processes.  This one, though, showed a lot more fire and a lot less cake.  She circled the orrery of GLaDOS' being, returning the gaze of the eyes, trying to find a vulnerable spot.

**So what do you think of the big wide world?  You were in such a hurry to get out there, after all.  Was it everything you hoped for?**

No terminals, no phone . . . no sign that anyone had been in here even before GLaDOS went insane.  Here she hadn't needed any wires to cut.  She might not even have needed the neurotoxin.

**I admit I briefly thought you'd do better out there.  And by 'do better' I mean 'die quickly.' But after I found out you'd lasted a little while, I decided to give you one last chance.  So don't say I never did anything nice for you.**

The base of the plinth shimmered in a way that couldn't quite be accounted for by the glow of the reactor spindle.  Chell tentatively tapped at it with the crowbar, aiming at one of the eyes as it slid by.  A violet ripple spread out in the air, and instead of a clank the only sound was a dull thump.  _Selective field_, she thought, _something like the ones the Combine had.  At least I didn't waste a shot on it._

**So here's my suggestion: You go on back to your vault, take a nap, and think it over.  Where else are you going to go?  To the same people who threatened to kill you if you fell into someone else's hands?  I hardly think so.** 

Her voice shifted, becoming quieter, more insinuating.  **Don't think I didn't notice what kind of crowd you've fallen in with.**  GLaDOS heaved an electronic version of a sigh.  **You're even wearing their colors.  It doesn't suit you**, she added in a mock whisper.

For the first time, Chell felt a twinge of admiration for the programmers who'd designed GLaDOS.  After all, it couldn't have been easy to make a machine sound catty.

**Let's not even get into the question of your uninvited guests.  They might have done more damage, but what you've done pains me more, since unlike them you knew what you were doing.**

**All right, that's an overstatement.**

**But at least you've demonstrated that you're a little better at following directions these days.**  The screen flickered to a single image and remained, the sudden stillness drawing her eye.  It now showed a camera feed, somewhere in the hall she'd left behind.  Calhoun stood in profile where she'd left him, bashing the butt of his pulse rifle against the door control panel.  **Not that it would have been that much of a loss.  I mean, _really_.  He's no weighted companion cube, is he?**

Chell gazed at the screen, the ASHPD forgotten in her hands.  He'd moved on from smashing the panel to fiddling with the wires within, his mouth moving as he worked.  Cursing, probably; she could almost hear what he must be saying, the tone of his voice.

She cleared her throat.  "He's all right," she said.

GLaDOS stopped.  Every whirling orb screeched to a halt, every secondary piece of machinery did the same, and even the screen froze, first stilling Calhoun's image, then blotting it out with white.  Each of the six eyes -- all gold, she noticed, no differentiation of purpose here -- turned to face Chell. 

** _DON'T YOU TALK BACK TO ME!_ **

The words were so loud Chell's ears rang, and somewhere back in the vents of the building something teetered and crashed to the floor.  The eyes started to move again, slowly this time but gaining speed, and one by one a new set opened, smaller and brilliant green.  Not personality cores, not the center of GLaDOS' being, but something else, something malevolent.

**I had something a lot more painless planned for you,** GLaDOS went on, her artificial serenity even more dissonant now.  **But someone -- and I'm not naming any names -- brought her friends, and they hogged all the neurotoxin.  So you really have only yourself to blame for this.**

A line of green light shot from the closest eye, sizzling the air past her and leaving a scorchmark on the wall.  A second laser grazed her arm, leaving a long burnt line across the suit -- and the heat she felt told her that the suit could only do so much against these.  She finally dodged, opening up a portal behind her.  Maybe she could do what she'd done in the Enrichment Center, destroy GLaDOS with her own weapons.

**All this could have been avoided if you'd known when to quit.  It's sad, when you think about it.  Not when I think about it, though.**

The first few beams that shot through the portal only glanced off GLaDOS' shield, and if a robot eye could look smug, she'd have sworn that was the look they were giving her.  No luck that way.  There had to be a way past the shield . . . the lasers had no trouble getting out, after all, or perhaps it was tailored to let them through.  But there was at least one part of the orrery that wasn't shielded.

She opened a portal up near the top of the room and leapt into it just as another laser clipped her heel. The suit began to mutter in her ear about compromised integrity -- but there, right where the reactor beam passed into the orrery itself, a walkway circled the beam.  It wasn't much, barely wide enough to hold a portal, but it was something.  She fired just as she hit the forcefield on the way down, smacking her shoulder against it.

**Well, you certainly haven't learned agility while you've been away.**

Hitting the ground hurt even more than hitting the field, and she had just enough presence of mind to roll out of the way of the lasers.  But she'd landed near her portal, and the view through it showed lasers and spinning eyes.  She jumped inside, clinging to the walkway.

There wasn't much room to stand; on one side of the walkway, the reactor beam nearly crisped her hair, on the other, orbs and lasers and a hundred other pieces whizzed by so fast they could take her head off.  But from here, she could follow the tracks, watch their complicated dance and make sense of it.  _Ignore the lasers, leave them for now . . . they're not the heart of her, they're just a distraction.  What's important are those six gold eyes._

Six eyes.  Six shots.  It would be cutting it close, but . . . She drew Calhoun's revolver and took aim, but the orbs moved too fast.

**If you think I won't hurt you just because you're inside me, think again.**  A single laser turned inward, and the resulting flare nearly drove Chell back into the beam.  She sidestepped -- and it didn't follow.  Or at least for a second it paused, and the rising orb behind her told her why: GLaDOS had learned from their last fight.  She wasn't going to let Chell trick her into shooting herself again.  Where the orbs were, the lasers would not fire . . . but the pattern of where they were and when was too hard to immediately decipher.  _If I could just slow one down, or stop it . . ._

She hesitated (not quite long enough for the lasers to find her), and a slow, manic smile touched her lips.  Gauging the path of the next orb to touch down next to her, she lifted the crowbar, turned, and wedged it into the track.

The eye slammed into the crowbar, jarring into place, and a high metallic shriek went up, more of straining metal than of pain.  Before GLaDOS could say anything Chell put the revolver against the eye and fired.  The report, deafeningly loud, seemed to run all the way up her arm to her spine, but the eye shattered under the shot, dying away in a wash of static.  _One down._

GLaDOS sighed again, though this time there was a mechanical edge to it very like someone gritting her teeth.  **Violence?  Since when has that ever solved anything?**  A laser glanced across Chell's shoulder as she yanked the crowbar free, and she hissed from the sudden heat and -- now -- pain as the last of the suit's charge failed.  **Anything for you, I mean?**

Chell cast a dirty look at the screen -- just visible through the interstices of the tracks -- and stuck the crowbar into another track.  This eye turned to glare at her as it struck the crowbar, the gold unsettlingly compound. 

**You really don't have any idea --**

Another shot, and another dead eye.

**\-- what you're doing, do you?**

Chell ignored her, dragging the crowbar loose.  The orbs spun faster now, harder to follow, and there were fewer safe spots where the lasers wouldn't touch her.  She wedged the crowbar into place, mentally cursed as an eye shot smoothly past, and replaced it on the next track.

**You didn't kill me before.  What makes you think it'll work this time?**

At that she hesitated.  For a second she had a hideous vision of an endless game of cat and mouse, of getting free over and over only for GLaDOS to pull her back every time she thought she was safe.

**It's not that I wouldn't love to string you along, but what's the point?  Nothing you do here matters.  My entire system is backed up and ready on the Bor -- rrrr -- _rrr_ \--**

Her voice caught up in a repeating burr, unintelligible and mechanical.  Chell took advantage of the moment to set the crowbar properly this time, then snuck a glance at the screen.  The twitching images gave way to static, and for just a second she caught a glimpse of a bearded, bespectacled face.

\-- **_RRR_ \-- okay, let's talk.**

Chell smiled, shook her head, and shot the third orb as it crashed against the crowbar.  Whoever that was, if he'd destroyed GLaDOS' backups, she owed him a beer.  That was if they still had beer in this strange new world.  _I'll ask Calhoun.  He'll know._

She dragged the crowbar free and ran to the far side of the walkway, following the remaining three eyes.  Green light shot past her face, but she kept on, watching the pattern.

**They would have killed you, you know.  They said as much in that transmission.  If I hadn't fixed it, they would have.  See how I take care of you, even when you're not here? **

There.  She slammed the crowbar into place just as an eye went whizzing past, and the crash it made against the iron was almost enough to knock it off its track. 

**I'm the only one with your best interests at heart.  Trust me.  It's much safer here with me.**

If Chell still had breath to laugh, she would have.  Instead she shot the orb -- _four down_ \-- and yanked away the crowbar before it had even stopped smoking.

**This isn't a game, Chell!  There's no cake for killing me!**

_So now you're using my name._  She slammed the crowbar into the next track so hard it sent an electrical tingle up her arm.  _And there never was any cake_.  She raised the revolver as the penultimate orb came whistling down the track.

A green beam struck her square in the chest -- not enough to pierce the suit, but enough to punch her back a step.  She staggered back, just avoiding the edge of the walkway, but her finger twitched on the trigger, and her shot went wild. 

Gasping for breath, Chell turned and fired her last shot at the smirking eye.  It shattered, but too late: the damage had been done.  Six shots, five eyes down, and that was it.  Calhoun's revolver was useless now.

**Wait.  Wait, wait, wait.  I think I understand now.**

Chell stared at the empty revolver, a chill creeping down her neck despite the ever-present heat of the reactor.

**You wouldn't do this if you knew**, GLaDOS said slowly, her tone taking on a note of gleeful realization.  **You wouldn't have done any of this if you understood.  Therefore you don't know.  There must have been a glitch in the mnemonic transfer, a faulty backup.  You can't even begin to know what's going on.  But I do.**

_The crowbar_, she thought desperately, trying to drown out GLaDOS' words as she holstered the revolver.  _I could just smash the last orb . . . but how to keep it still?  I can't just whack at it in passing._

**Do you know why this place seemed so familiar, Chell?  Maybe you think you do, you think you remember, but I can tell you right now it's all a lie.  You think any of that is _real_?**

Chell raised her head, staring at the last gold eye.  It swiveled to watch her in turn, inscrutable in its arc.

**But I know.  I'm the only one who knows who you were.  What you were.  What you still are.  I can give that back to you.**

Even the lasers had paused, she realized; none of them had fired on her, despite the clear opening she'd given them.  She choked up on the crowbar with both hands, holding it so tight the edges began to bite into her gloved palms.

A thin edge of smoke rose up around her.  For a second she mistook it for the remnants of of GLaDOS' shattered parts or the reactor beam itself, but it wasn't either.  It was her -- or, more specifically, the suit, and the charred dent the last laser had put in it.  She raised her hand to wave the smoke away, then paused.

The dent was in the same place as the hole in the broken gray breastplate that made the centerpiece of Dr. Green's makeshift memorial.

Chell made an inarticulate noise, spun, and jammed her left heelspring into the track of the last eye.  The eye slammed into her, and the shock traveled all the way up to her bones.  She hissed as the heel spring twisted under the impact, deforming under the strain.

GLaDOS' last eye turned to stare at her, dilating in near-human shock.  **What are you doing**?

For answer, Chell raised the crowbar in both hands and brought it down point-first against the orb.  The resulting impact twisted her heel spring even further, but a shower of sparks went up from the eye.

**No!  You'll never know!  You'll never --**

_Oh, I know enough_, Chell thought, punctuating each thought with a whack.  _I know all I need to._

_I know my name is Chell._

_I know Calhoun's got my back._

_And I know you end here._

GLaDOS gave one last wail, and the eye shattered under her assault, pieces springing free of the track as if to attack Chell.  Behind her, the reactor beam shuddered, then flared white.  Chell flung up her hands as the room exploded around her.  


* * *

The sound of dripping water and metal creaking pulled her back to consciousness, or a close approximation.  _I've been here before_, she thought through the haze of pain.  _I've already done the whole lying-in-the-wreckage thing.  Can we move on to the next part?_

_Only now no one's going to come in and find me.  Crap._

She opened her eyes and sat up.  Where GLaDOS had been was now a crater of broken masonry and steel, shards of lenses and lasers scattered across it like the remnants of a tray of glassware.  A fragment of track was still tangled in her left heel spring, and when she pulled it free she could see the damage: the spring was twisted completely out of alignment, and though she hadn't yet broken anything, when she stood, the strain on her bones came damn close. 

_Not gonna try a portal jump like this_, she thought, and felt around for the ASHPD.  It was there, still slung over her shoulder, and the crowbar lay a few feet away.  And Calhoun's empty revolver was still in its holster.

Calhoun.  She hobbled forward a few steps, then stopped.  A twisted wreck of concrete and rebar blocked the door she'd come through.  She couldn't tell if it was just from the explosion, or if that whole part of the building had fallen in . . . but there was a vent, its grate blocked by a tangle of rebar.  She unslung the ASHPD, praying it still worked, and fired.

The blue glimmer of a portal appeared through the grate.  Sighing, she opened an orange portal in the narrow space between wreckage and crater and crawled through.

No gunfire.  No voices.  No sound at all, and this vent turned away from the blocked door, taking her further down the hall than she wanted to be.  She tucked her bad leg under her and kicked out the closing grate, and emerged --

\-- on top of a heap of deactivated turrets.

The white shells clattered under her feet, and she stumbled, lurching against the wall.  One or two gave out feeble, diminished beeps, but that was it.  They filled this end of the hall, a dozen at least, and there were more up ahead.

And at the far end of the hall, where the last test chamber had been, where she had left him, the glass doors bore a long, descending streak of blood.

Chell kicked dead turrets out of her way as she tried to run.  Calhoun sat at the end of the streak, propped up against the doors, the rifle still braced against his lap.  For a moment she couldn't breathe -- but he raised his head, blinking blood out of his eyes.  A smile spread across his face.  "You made it."

She dropped down next to him.  There was a lot of blood, and she was sure there was more she couldn't yet see . . .

"You took care of her?" he asked, not taking his eyes from her face.

Chell nodded, tapping the revolver.  _With your help_.

"That's good."  He drew a deep, ragged breath.  "I think I understand why you didn't want me to go with you," he added, pointing with the rifle.  She looked over her shoulder to see an Aperture Science loudspeaker, the same kind that GLaDOS had used to taunt her through the back halls of the Enrichment Center, a panel hanging askew beside it.  This one, though, was riddled with holes.  "She wanted to talk.  I didn't want to listen."  Calhoun shook his head.  "Stupid to waste the ammo . . . but I could hear some of what she was yelling at you, and I figured that was plenty."

Something groaned and crashed further in the building, and Chell realized for the first time that she wasn't cold because she was scared or hurt, she was cold because the Arctic chill had started to creep into the previously isolated parts of the facility.  She slung the ASHPD out of her way, took Calhoun's arm, and pulled it across her shoulders.  __

"Next time, though, I'm coming with you.  Okay?"  His eyes unfocused as she shifted his weight, but he didn't protest, and he kept breathing.  That was important.

Her left heelspring twisted further as she got to her feet, protesting under their combined weight.  Chell gritted her teeth and hitched his arm further across her shoulders, then froze as Calhoun's cheek brushed hers.

Memory flashed around her, so strong it nearly flooded out the pain: a stubbled cheek against hers, spring sunlight through blinds, and a pungent, delicious scent.  And more: two voices, one of which she thought was her own, talking about . . . about work . . . A lazy morning, coffee on a Sunday, sharing stories from the new contract.  The image faded around her, leaving her with only the wrecked hallway and Calhoun's labored breathing beside her . . . and where was he now, the man who'd made that coffee, the source of this tactile memory?

Gone.  Gone for a long time.  Even if GLaDOS was right about the reality of her memories, the loss she felt was true.  But now, now she was here and alive, and the thing that mattered from this memory was not the man she'd lost, not the scent of coffee, but grousing about a particular thing, one among the many irrationalities they both had to deal with, one that had become almost a joke: _they'll toss all safeguards out the window programming that thing or testing on the ship, but God forbid . . . _

She lurched forward a step and whacked her elbow against the closest wall panel.  Nothing, and the creaks from deep in the facility were growing louder.  On to the next.

"That doesn't sound good," Calhoun muttered drowsily.  "I'm slowing you down . . . maybe you better leave me behind."

_. . . God forbid they break even one OSHA regulation, so every fifty feet . . ._

Next panel.  Nothing.  Next -- and this one had a hollow sound to it. Chell smiled grimly and hit it again, so that the panel sprang free, revealing a stack of white boxes within.  She crouched, setting Calhoun down against the wall.

"Chell, I'm serious."  He opened his eyes and tried to focus on her.  "Leave me.  I mean, we got that thing, we kept the Combine out, that's what's important --"

_Every fifty feet, there has to be a first-aid station_.  "You talk too much," Chell said, and smacked him in the stomach with a medkit.

Two medkits more, and he could stand, though his face was still pale and he wouldn't stop staring at her.  "You can talk," he said finally, wonderingly.

Chell grinned and nodded.

"Oh, for the love of --" He shook his head and laughed, and the sound of it was stronger than his earlier strained chuckle.  "Fine.  Be that way, then."  He got to his feet, wincing a little, and held out his hand. 

Chell accepted the hand up, staggering a little on her broken heelspring.  "I can talk.  Can't fly a helicopter.  Think next time you try to be noble."

"That's pretty rich, coming from you."  But he didn't seem inclined to move or let go, not till another crash and thump from deeper inside startled both of them.  "Right.  Helicopter.  Should be this way."

It was, out through a broken door and onto a snowy ledge that might once have overlooked the picnic tables.  Chell's memory murmured again, a whisper of landing here once in better days and worse weather, but she ignored it in favor of dragging the body of a Combine soldier out of the remaining intact helicopter.  Calhoun settled into the pilot's seat with a sigh.  "Systems, check, fuel, check . . . we should have enough to get to White Forest at least, if not City 12 . . . should be a gunsight in back, if you could take that we should be able to face anything that might be waiting . . ."

She found the gunsight at the other end of the helicopter: a screen showing a panoramic view from the rear, apparently for the helicopter's mounted gun.  Through the screen, the Aperture Science Contingency Site and Storage Facility caved in on itself like an iceberg calving, and she felt a faint, final twinge at the sight -- not regret, but loss, loss long accepted.

"Check . . . check . . . okay.  Let's see what kind of chatter's out there." 

A whine of static blared through the helicopter, resolving into a woman's voice.  "-- anyone hear me?  Any resistance member, come in, come in please --"

"Mother of God," Calhoun whispered, and seized the radio.  "Alyx, is that you?"

Even through the static, Chell could hear her gasp.  "Barney?  What are you doing this far north?"

Calhoun glanced back at her and started to grin. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you.  Hang on, I've got your position.  You folks all right?"

"I'm okay, but Gordon's hurt --"  Her voice caught.  "It's pretty bad."

"Sit tight.  We'll be there soon."  The engine started up, and he took the controls.  "What do you think, Chell?  Ready to go be the cavalry?"

"Sounds fun," she said distantly, watching as the facility began to recede below them.  Another wall, the one that had faced the lobby, fell in as they rose, and the crater where GLaDOS had been began to spread outward, reducing halls and offices and Relaxation Vaults and hiding places to rubble.  The empty spot in her memories, the indefinable blank that had supplied her with so many familiar moments, quieted.  And GLaDOS' last words --

_It doesn't matter_, she thought, and stood, holding on to the gunsight to keep herself upright.  _I'm alive.  Calhoun's alive.  These two people, they'll stay alive -- and all because GLaDOS isn't._

She came to stand behind Calhoun, putting a hand on his shoulder to steady herself.  Without looking up, he covered her hand with his, just for a second.  _Yes.  We're all still alive._

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to Orichalxos, who betaed the whole damn thing and encouraged me to keep going with it.


End file.
